ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to sum up some theoretical aspects of histochemical reactions used in polarization microscopic ultrastructural analysis. Electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and polarization microscopy are three powerful and complementary tools in ultrastructure research. The potentialities of both electron microscopy and polarization microscopy are considerably increased when combined with histochemistry. While electron-microscopic histochemical methods are widely used, the application of relevant histochemical reactions for polarization microscopic investigations is scarce. This may be due to at least three things: they are not sufficiently known; the ultrastructural analysis based on these techniques is an indirect—and not always simple—approach which has less popularity and credit among some scientists; occasional abuse may cause distrust of this technique. Polarization microscopy, mainly epipolarization microscopy, can be used for qualitative and quantitative assessment of autoradiographs, and for sensitive detection of immunohistochemical reactions when using immunogold-silver labelings. The sensitivity of cation-binding reaction when evaluated in normal light is less than that of immunohistochemical reactions.
