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1 April 2017 Cresyl Violet Stains Mast Cells Selectively: Its Application to Counterstaining in Immunohistochemistry
Noriyuki Takahashi, Wataru Tarumi, Naomi Hamada, Bunpei Ishizuka, Masanori T Itoh
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Abstract

The thiazine dye toluidine blue (TB) is well known to stain mast cells and hyaline cartilage metachromatically, and thus is mostly often used for their identification. However, TB is not suitable for counterstaining in immunohistochemistry, because of its high-background staining in the cytoplasm of other cell species and in extracellular structures. To expand the knowledge about dyestuffs staining mast cells in consideration with their usage in immunohistochemistry, we determined the stainability of several thiazines and oxazines, which are structurally related compounds to TB, using sections of mast cell-containing tissues. We found that all azine dyes used metachromatically stained mast cells and cartilage. Among these dyes, an oxazines cresyl violet (CV) stained mast cells with lower background, suggesting that those are useful for detecting mast cells and for counterstaining in immunohistochemistry. To ascertain its utility, CV was used in immunostaining of bHSDs in sections from adult rat ovary. Immunopositive signals reflected by DAB development in brown were clearly detected even after CV staining. We conclude that, similar to thiazines, oxazines stain mast cells metachromatically, and that of these, CV is more useful as a counterstain in immunohistochemistry than TB.

© 2017 Zoological Society of Japan
Noriyuki Takahashi, Wataru Tarumi, Naomi Hamada, Bunpei Ishizuka, and Masanori T Itoh "Cresyl Violet Stains Mast Cells Selectively: Its Application to Counterstaining in Immunohistochemistry," Zoological Science 34(2), 147-150, (1 April 2017). https://doi.org/10.2108/zs160162
Received: 30 September 2016; Accepted: 1 December 2016; Published: 1 April 2017
KEYWORDS
azine dyes and immunohistochemistry
cresyl violet
mast cell
metachromasia
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