We report on an easy method to remove muscle tissue from the skeleton by alcalase detergent in mammalian skeleton specimen preparation.In the present paper,using hare skull specimen as an example,we describe the alcalase detergentmethod in details and compare it with other methods for mammalian skeleton specimen preparation.In this method,hare muscle tissues are removed from skeletons by alcalase detergent.With commercial proteinases,alcalase(2.4 L,2.4 AU/g,Novozymes Biotechnology Co.,Ltd.),the process requires around 10 minutes’ skeletal simmering in a 0.5% solution(V/V)of the alcalase and water under 60 ℃ condition.In total,about 101 rat skull and 487 hare skull specimens are made using this method.Compared to other traditional methods in mammalian skeleton specimen preparation,the alcalase detergent method is safer,more efficient and less costly,and it is also suitable for batch production of skeleton specimen.
