What is the purpose of Xylene in immunohistochemistry?
Xylene is an organic solvent which is miscible with alcohol and wax. In histochemistry alcohol is used to dehydrate tissue sections and then this alcohol is further replaced by xylene (being miscible with alcohol) in a process called as clearing. After this DPX is used to mount cover slips on the sections. One more use of xylene is to dissolve wax which is used to make sections of tissues. Hence, we see that xylene is a clearing agent capable of dissolving wax as well as alcohol.