Tissue technique collecting in animals

Tissues collected from animals with suspected infectious diseases can be evaluated by several different techniques. Tissue samples should be aseptically placed in appropriate transport media for culture procedures or inoculated into laboratory animals, if indicated, before further handling.

Gently blotting the cut edge of the tissue on a paper towel to remove excess blood and then lightly touching the tissue multiple times to a microscope slide make tissue impressions for cytoligic examination. Tissue specimens can then be frozen, placed into 10% buffered formalin solution, or placed into glutaraldehyde-containing solutions. Frozen specimens are generally superior for immunohistochemical staining and PCR. Routine histopathologic evaluation is performed on formalin-fixed tissues. Special stains can be used to maximize the identification of some infectious agents.

The clinician should alert the histopathology laboratory to to the infectious agents most suspected to allow for appropriate stain selection. Glutaraldehyde-containing fixatives are superior to other fixatives for electron microscopic examination of tissues; this technique can be more sensitive than other procedures for demonstration of viral particles.

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