Vibratome

Advantages

• No need to dehydrate tissues prior to embedding, thus decreased loss of cell constituents
• No messy paraffin embedding
• Allows for agarose embedding of tissue to provide cutting stability
• No need to deparaffinise and rehydrate sections prior to immunostaining
• No high temperatures or harsh chemical treatments that may lead to antigen instability
• No special microtome blades required
• Less chance of artifacts caused by paraffin embedding or freezing
• Decreased tissue autofluoresecence due to avoidance of formalin-fixation and paraffin embedding
• Less wait period from tissue sampling to time of immunolabelling
• Allows for direct creation of free-floating sections for immunohistochemistry

  Disadvantages

• Instead of ribbons, single sections are cut and collected which are more delicate and difficult to handle.
• Sections are generally thicker than those obtained with paraffin methods; penetration of antibodies and other reagents may be slower and thus longer incubation times may be necessary. Also, thick sections may be difficult to image with the microscope.
• Securing vibratome sections to glass slides can be difficult or impossible, due to the thickness of the sections.