Scientific Reports (Mar 2021)

Intranuclear birefringent inclusions in paraffin sections by polychromatic polarization microscopy

  • Aiste Vitkunaite,
  • Aida Laurinaviciene,
  • Benoit Plancoulaine,
  • Allan Rasmusson,
  • Richard Levenson,
  • Michael Shribak,
  • Arvydas Laurinavicius

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-85667-8
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 7

Abstract

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Abstract Intranuclear birefringent inclusions (IBI) found in various cell types in paraffin-embedded tissue sections have long been considered to be a tissue processing artifact, although an association with biological processes has been suggested. We applied polychromatic polarization microscopy to image their spatial organization. Our study provides evidence that IBI are caused by liquid paraffin-macromolecular crystals formed during paraffin-embedding procedures within cells and potentially reflect an active transcriptional status.