Light microscopical localization of enzymes by means of cerium-based methods. II. A new cerium-lead-technique for alkaline phosphatase.

The use of cerium ions as a primary capture reagent in phosphatase histochemistry on the light and the electron microscopic level is a progress in the field of enzyme localization. Many influences of other captures (as of lead ions), e.g. enzyme inhibition, diffusion and other artefacts, are restricted when cerium-based methods are used. But the broader use of cerium is difficult, because cerium ions are at alkaline pH converted to the insoluble cerium hydroxide, which intensively precipitates in the incubation medium. This is an important disadvantage for a successful histochemical detection of alkaline phosphatase. The aim of this paper is to describe a new cerium-based method for the light microscopical detection of alkaline phosphatase, which is free from all these above mentioned problems. It is proposed a collidine buffer-sucrose containing medium, which holds cerium ions at pH = 9.0 in solution. The histochemical results of this method are excellent. The method is compared with a strontium based technique, the coupling azo dye technique for alkaline phosphatase as well as with in vitro and histochemical experiments with several chelator agents. The cerium-based collidine-sucrose technique is superior to all other procedures tested here and is recommended for a broader use.