A simple and effective heat induced antigen retrieval method

In this paper, we describe an additional step to the standard method of heat induced antigen retrieval to improve the detection of antibody staining of formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue sections. Direct heating of tissues in buffer is an efficient epitope retrieval method but often results in the damage or loss of tissues. In this modified method, before keeping in buffer for heating, we overlapped the tissue on the slide with a plain slide by clipping one end using a normal paperclip, keeping a minimum gap between the slides. Tissues heated in this way in buffer had following advantages over normal heat treatment for epitope retrieval.
• Tissues were intact even at high temperatures which improved the quality of staining by preventing fold, damage or detachment of tissues from the slides.
• The method is very safe and economical compared to the methods using microwave or pressure cooker.
• This simple method also appears to be very effective and less time consuming compared to the existing methods.