UV versus chemical polymerization of glycol methacrylate (GMA) in enzyme histochemistry.

The influence of the mode of polymerization of GMA on the enzyme activities of differently fixed rat livers was studied. It was found that with increasing time of UV-polymerization several enzyme activities were inhibited whereas chemical polymerization was comparatively less harmful. The histochemical reactivity of substrates such as glycogen was not impaired by the mode of polymerization, which is in contrast to the increased basophilia of DNA and RNA after UV-polymerization.