Fellow histonetters,

Has anyone out there experienced their Desmin fading away on precut control slides?  Lately, we just haven't been doing this antibody quite as often. We have noticed that after the slides are about 8 weeks old the control slide will stain only around the periphery of the tissue....the staining intensity is about the same - it just won't stain the center of the tissue.  We check the first and last slide of our control batch (contol tissue & patient are mounted on same slide) after they have been cut and they are OK then.
Any ideas?....is this just a fixation problem?  Would freezing the control slides help resolve this problem?
Thanks in advance for your help!

Ann Maruska
Fairview-University Med Ctr
Mpls. MN
amarusk1@fairview.org 
612-672-4005