Bright-field leaf sections

I've been trying to get good clean cross-sections of tobacco and Nicotiana benthamiana leaves, and having a few problems with the tobacco cell walls, which have a tendency to rip and tear apart. Following up the suggestions made by a few colleagues I've found that using a different brand of the embedding media, and also sectioning at a lower temperature, makes a significant difference. The section below is 5 microns thick (that's 5 thousandths of a millimetre).

Ironically, I can't get the microtome lab cold enough - these sections were cut at a room temperature of 19 degrees Celsius. I'm planning on moving the microtome to a room with ambient temperature of 12 degrees and trying there.

The cell architecture of N. benthamiana appears to be much more robust and has stayed intact during sectioning, even at a thickness of only 4 microns.

My next stage is to stain the sections.