MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Hi there I just found this while centrifuging a blood sample from a beef. It is stained with methylene blue and is around 35 microns. Does anyone have an idea of what it could be?

Sorry Raul but no idea.

I am guessing, without certainty, that it is an undissolved crystal of methylene blue.

I agree with zzffnn's guess.

Aw heck, you guys beat me to it. It is pretty though.
CE

Looks like a pollen-grain to me, about the right size too, the peripheral protrusions look a lot like pores also....

Well zzffnn and gekko, it is a wet mount, also I added more water to the slide and nothing ( so not a crystal of m.b.). It appears to be stucked to the slide ( I fixed the cells with a lighter). The thing is the slide was pretty normal ( muscles cells, epithelial cells) and all of a sudden this. I viewed it under polarised light and no birefringence (definitely not a crystal)
A pollen grain sounds more plausible since the beef was bought seasoned with all sorts of herbs, I think you're right mrsonchus!

Thank you very much guys for being so prompt and putting your brains on some food for thought.

Regards,
Raul

I found this, apparently it could be from thyme.

Cool! This was from a sample of blood drained from a package of beef? Did you find anything else interesting in the sample?
CE

Apologies for my wrong identification. John B is (always) right!

Crater Eddie nothing in particular, I just looked at the sediment that formed from centrifugation (epithelial cells, skeletal muscle cells and some erythrocytes but that seemed to be all, except this pollen sample)

Here's another picture of some skeletal muscle tissue

Well that's pretty good, you can see the striations in the tissue.
CE

Details, including striations, are quite visible in your stained section. How did you process it? What objective did you use

Thank you, Crater Eddie.
Well gekko, it is not really my best work on muscle (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1732&p=13463&hilit=muscle#p13463) here's another post of mine talking about this subject, but I will describe my procedure as detailed as possible.

Took blood from a steak, then I centrifuged the blood for 20 min and I observed that something sedimented (my centrifuge is not that good to sediment erythrocytes entirely and separate the layers of blood, is a home made one but still does the job).
I put the sediment on slide, washed it with acetone and let it to dry, then I fixed the cells with a lighter. I put a drop of 1% aqueous methylene blue for 30 s and then washed it with water; put a coverslip on the slide and that is the procedure.
The photos were taken with my phone (rather hasty) , and the objective was 40x with a 20x eyepiece .
Although I have to say that from my first post I learned that Glycerol-jelly is a suitable media to mount muscle tissue (making the striations more visible) rather the Nail Polish which apparently made them almost invisible.
Thank you for your time guys and thank you for your appreciation.

Nice work (and yes I am familiar with your earlier post). I am somewhat confused (due to my ignorance) as to how you take blood and then on the slide you get muscle? Again apologies for a dumb question.

Thank you gekko and that is not a dumb question ( I think it is a rather good one).
The sample of blood was taken from a steak (from the cutting process some bits of muscle got ripped and stayed in suspension in the liquid) I was also surprised to see something sediment since the blood was clear at first view. By centrifuging the sample the heavier bits in it sedimented ( muscle bits, epithelial cells and some pollen from the seasoning plants, in this case thyme .

I still think this is very interesting. What kind of shape were the RBCs in? Did you find any WBCs? I would expect them all to be in pretty sad shape.
CE

Well sadly I have no photos of that, but maybe my description will do.
RBC were normally shaped (biconcave), although some were broken/shattered ( probably due to defrosting),and WBC none so far, but I only took 2 samples of the sediment and didn't see a sign of WBC, therefore I do not know if they were present( maybe I was just unlucky).

Raul wrote:Thank you gekko and that is not a dumb question ( I think it is a rather good one).
The sample of blood was taken from a steak (from the cutting process some bits of muscle got ripped and stayed in suspension in the liquid) I was also surprised to see something sediment since the blood was clear at first view. By centrifuging the sample the heavier bits in it sedimented ( muscle bits, epithelial cells and some pollen from the seasoning plants, in this case thyme .

Thank you, Raul, for your kind and patient explanation.