ON ARTIFACTS APPEARING IN THE HISTOCHEMICAL FIXATION OF GLYCOGEN

1. Fixation artifacts associated with glycogen translocation are prevalent in tissues of parenchymatous type and scarce or non-existent in tissues of loose type. 2. Liver tissue treated with M/3 NaOH solution before fixation did not show an uneven distribution of glycogen. This was interpreted as indicating that the liver, a tissue of parenchymatous type, was changed, so to speak, into a loose type of tissue by alkali treatment. 3. The so called Alkohol-flucht of glycogen was produced in Yoshida's ascites tumor cells by a procedure which changed a loose type of tissue into a parenchymatous one, that is, by packing the tumor cells tightly. 4. The translocation of glycogen in cells appeared to occur when the fixatives penetrated the cells rapidly from a single direction, but failed to occur when the cells were attacked by the fixative from all directions. 5. In dried smears of Yoshida's ascites tumor cells and bone marrow cells, the glycogen particles are translocated to the peripheral regions of the cells, and coalesce there. The production of these artifacts is related in some way to the physicochemical properties of the protoplasm and plasma membrane of the cells.