Loctite UV 357 polymerised glass adhesive as a section mounting medium.

The permanent encapsulation of cell monolayers and histological sections on to microscope slides is usually performed using a plastic and solvent system such as XAM or DPX (British Drug Houses, Poole, Dorset UK). Because of the solubility of some of the coloured stain and reaction products increasingly used in newer enzyme substrate based staining techniques and the damage caused to sections from plastic embedded tissue by the hydrocarbon solvent in these preparations, it is not always possible to use this system. A further disadvantage of conventional mounting media is that until the solvent has evaporated, coverslip fixation is not permanent. Alternative mountants are available, but almost all have disadvantages which give them a more limited range of uses than conventional types of media. There is a need for a mounting media that can, in certain circumstances, be substituted for conventional mounting media. Such a medium should ideally have all the advantages but none of the drawbacks of the plastic and solvent system and be easy to use. In this paper the properties of one possible substitute were investigated.