The effects of fixation by combination of glutaraldehyde/dimethyl suberimidate. Use of collagen as a model system.

The fixative behavior of glutaraldehyde/dimethyl suberimidate in combination was studied using reconstituted fibrils of type I calf skin collagen as a model system and comparing electron-optical data and chemical data by a computer-aided correlation procedure. The results confirm that the structural preservation of collagen obtained using prefixation in glutaraldehyde followed by dimethyl suberimidate fixation is less than when using dimethyl suberimidate and postfixation in glutaraldehyde. Furthermore, glutaraldehyde preserves the structure of collagen to a lesser degree than dimethyl suberimidate. With the combination of the two fixatives, the preservation of fine structure of collagen obtained is less than that when using dimethyl suberimidate alone.