HISTOCHEMICAL STUDIES 

 ON LIVER POLYSACCHARIDES 



LUCILLE BITENSKY, ROSEMARY ELLIS, 

 J. CHAYEN and A. A. SILCOX 



Department of Pathology, Royal Collège of Surgeons, 

 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London 



Enzyme studies on expérimental liver tumours indicated that the endo- 

 genous respiration of certain cells was unusually high. This suggested 

 an intracellolar store of carbohydrate but the usual staining methods 

 failed to reveal such a store in controlled température frozen sections, 

 apparently owing to loss of polysaccharide during fixation. Moreover, 

 the conventional fixatives did not produce idéal results even for routine 

 diagnostic inspection. 



An investigation will be reported in which the effects of alcohol, 

 sait concentrations and picric acid on mucus, on intracellular water 

 soluble carbohydrate and on cell structures hâve been studied. This bas 

 permitted the démonstration of labile polysaccharide in those cells 

 which showed high endogenous respiration. It is expected that the sec- 

 tioning method together with this fixation mixture will permit sections to 

 be eut and stained very rapidly and yet to yield results at least compa- 

 rable to those obtained by routine histological procédures. 



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