This fact sheet explains the basics of caulking and weather stripping, and provides a comparison of the types of products available for these two weatherization techniques.

Bimonthly newsletter from DOE's Office of Industrial Technologies to promote the use of energy-efficient industrial systems.

It is peculiar that in situ hybridization (ISH), a technique with many similarities to immunohistochemistry (IHC), has not enjoyed the phenomenal growth in both basic research and clinical applications as has its sister technique IHC. Since the late 1970s, when immunoperoxidase techniques began to be applied to routine diagnostic material and to numerous research applications, there has been a natural evolution of the IHC procedure. Namely, only a few primary antibodies were available commercially at the onset, and only one indirect and the peroxidase-antiperoxidase (PAP) technique detection systems were in place. With the advent of avidin-biotin detection systems and monoclonal antibodies, and a viable commercial market, extraordinary growth of the procedure's applications in clinical research and diagnostic pathology occurred during the subsequent two decades. Today, IHC is automated and widely used for research purposes and, to a large extent, has become a routine diagnostic ''special stain'' in most clinical laboratories. During the same period, ISH enjoyed very little growth in both research and diagnostic applications. What has accounted for this lack of maturation of the technique? The success of IHC is part of the reason measuring a gene's encoded protein routinely and inexpensively, particularly as automation evolved, rendered IHC a …

For many applications, silver salt-based autometallography (often also called silver enhancement or silver development) is required to visualize colloidal gold (1-5 nm in diameter) or the small 1.4 nm Nanogold{reg_sign} particles (Nanoprobes, Yaphank, NY, USA). Although even Nanogold may be seen directly by scanning-transmission electron microscopy (STEM), by transmission EM (TEM; in thin sections without stain or ice-embedded cryo-EM samples), energy filtered TEM, and scanning EM (SEM), silver enhancement makes viewing in the EM more facile since the particles are enlarged to approximately 10 to 20 nm, convenient for most specimens. Autometallographic (AMG) enhancement is required in order to visualize smaller gold particles such as Nanogold for light microscopy (LM) or in blots or gels. This chapter includes the following protocols: Protocol for HQ silver enhancement of Nanogold; Protocols for use of silver-enhanced Nanogold with osmium tetroxide--(A) Procedure using reduced concentration of OsO{sub 4}; (B) Procedures for gold toning; Protocol for HQ silver enhancement of Nanogold in pre-embedding immunocytochemistry for cell cultures; Protocol for gold enhancement of Nanogold for EM; Protocol for gold enhancement of Nanogold for LM; Protocol for staining blots with Nanogold and silver enhancement; and Protocol for staining gels with Nanogold and silver enhancement.

Gold has been used for immunocytochemistry since 1971 when Faulk and Taylor discovered adsorption of antibodies to colloidal gold. It is an ideal label for electron microscopy (EM) due to its high atomic number, which scatters electrons efficiently, and the fact that preparative methods have been developed to make uniform particles in the appropriate size range of 5 to 30 nm. Use in light microscopy (LM) generally requires silver enhancement (autometallography; AMG) of these small gold particles. Significant advances in this field since that time have included a better understanding of the conditions for best antibody adsorption, more regular gold size production, adsorption of other useful molecules, like protein A, and advances in silver enhancement. Many studies have also been accomplished showing the usefulness of these techniques to cell biology and biomedical research. A further advance in this field was the development of Nanogold{trademark}, a 1.4 nm gold cluster. A significant difference from colloidal gold is that Nanogold is actually a coordination compound containing a gold core covalently linked to surface organic groups. These in turn may be covalently attached to antibodies. This approach to immunolabeling has several advantages compared to colloidal gold such as vastly better penetration into tissues, …

Nanogold{reg_sign}, a gold cluster with a core of gold atoms 1.4 nm in diameter, has proven to be a superior probe label for electron microscopy (EM), giving both higher labeling density and improved access to previously hindered or restricted antigens. It may be visualized by autometallography (AMG) for use in light microscopy (LM): silver-and gold-amplified Nanogold detection has proven to be one of the most sensitive methods available for the detection of low copy number targets such as viral DNA in cells and tissue specimens. AMG enhancement has also made Nanogold an effective detection label in blots and gels. The following protocols will be described: Labeling of nuclear components in cells. Protocol for in situ hybridization and detection with fluorescein-Nanogold--or Cy3{trademark}-Nanogold-labeled streptavidin. Nanogold is an inert molecule, and generally does not interact with biological molecules unless a specific chemical reactivity is introduced into the molecule. Conjugates are prepared using site-specific chemical conjugation through reactive chemical functionalities introduced during Nanogold preparation, which allows the gold label to be attached to a specific site on the conjugate biomolecule. For example, a maleimido-Nanogold derivative, which is specific for thiol binding, is frequently attached to the hinge region of an antibody at a unique …