Supercritical CO2 for staining a brain with OsO4?

Question

I'm trying to stain a whole mouse brain with OsO4 for imaging with electron microscopy, and I'm wondering about using supercritical CO2 to facilitate the staining.

Any insight into whether this would work would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

Are you actually trying to stain the whole mouse brain? There are some newer methods for en bloc staining with OsO₄, but these are on the mm scale, and not whole brain. Not sure what the CO₂ would accomplish, but it's highly unlikely you can get good staining/contrast with whole brain samples. Maybe I misunderstood your question, however.