A reliable method for immunocytochemical identification of Lucifer Yellow injected, peptide-containing mammalian...

An immunocytochemical procedure is described for reliably determining the hormone content of magnocellular neuroendocrine neurons that have been injected with Lucifer Yellow in slices of rat hypothalamus. The chief advantages of this procedure over others currently available are: (a) it permits whole mount observation of the tissue, and thus, of the morphology of filled cell(s) as well as of such phenomena as dye-coupling; (b) the reliability of tissue preparation and peptide determination has been optimized so that about 85% of injected cells are identified immunocytochemically; and (c) the final immunostained product is permanent, permitting bright-field examination of the injected cell. Relative advantages and limitations of this and other recently published methods are discussed.