x-gal staining of embryos (whole mount) - possible after methanol? (Jun/01/2006 )

I have some mouse embryos that I fixed overnight in 4% PFA at 4C. Then I went through a methanol series and placed at -20 until genetyping could be done. Since this is a new assay for us, we wanted to wait for genetyping so we knew which ones we could play around with and which were more precious.

As I understand, from here I can take the samples through a methanol series to rehydrate and then immunostain. Is it also possible (either in combo or independent from immunostaining) to stain with x-gal?

Any help would be much appreciate!
Thanks

I guess another option may be to use a b-gal antibody. Does anyone have a sense of how these two stains (x-gal vs. b-gal Ab) compare?

Thanks!