I want to stain beta cells of pancreatic islets of rats, for my diabetic study, I want to try with some alternative stains instead of gomori aldehyde fuchsin stain (a beta cell specific stain) which has been used by many researchers regularly.
Madhan
Newport green-Ac or similar derivative (see Molecular probes handbook) might be what you need. It is a cell permeant, zinc specific and fluorescent dye.
G'day Mahhan Kumar --- You asked about alternatives to Aldehyde fuchsine for staining pancreatic beta cells. And Bernhard Meier suggested a fluorescent probe. But these are applied to living cells, whereas AF is used with paraffin sections. So what kind of preparation are you concerned with? If it was with paraffin sections, well there is a wide variety of stains which have been used for this. For instance I am "now" looking in the index of an old-fashioned staining manual called "Histopathologic technic and practical histochemistry", by RD Lillie and HM Fulmer, 1976, McGraw-Hill, New York. [you might need to get your library to get hold of this, I bought a second hand copy off Abe Books] And there are nine methods listed. If this is the sort of thing you're after, get back to me. Bye, Richard Horobin
Dithizone is used to assess the purity of human pancreatic islet preparations used for transplantation into patients with type 1 diabetes. Dithizone binds zinc ions present in the islet's beta cells, and therefore stains the islets red. Exocrine tissue also present in the preparations does not bind dithizone, and is therefore not stained. Source: Wikipedia
thanks you experts for your valuable answers,as said by richard horobin,i am concerned with paraffin sections on rat tissues only,but we do not have the book suggested by you richard, so if you have some idea, please let me know about this sir.
madhan
Good day too, Mahhan Kumar --- As Prof. Horobin pointed out (BTW, he is expert in staining questions of all kind!), it will be necessary also for you to dig a bit into older literature. If you are scheduled for HC-stains on paraffin embedded material, you might find as a valuable source perhaps also
Lee G. LUNA (Ed), Histopathologic Methods and Color Atlas of Special Stains and Tissue Artifacts, 1992 (C: American Histolabs Inc, Gaitheresburg MD 20879 USA), Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-070140.
For pancreatic tissues/cells there are mentioned
(only to serve with searching phrases/terms in case you have no access to that book):
Kito-Hosoda Method for Pancreatic Islet cells,
Halmi's Method for Pancreatic ß-(Beta-) Cell Granules
Maldonado's Method for Pancreatic Islet Cells and
Wenger's Method for Pancreatic Beta Cell Granules
It would be really meaningful if you also could provide the fixative you have used for your specimens.
Due to (C) I will not be able to add here publicly a pdf with the mentioned methods. So you might write to me @ [email protected] and I perhaps would be able to send you only for your personal use that pdf.
Best wishes and good luck, Wolfgang
It seems to me that staining beta cells for insulin with an insulin specific antibody would be one of the easiest and most specific approaches.
@Bernhard Fidelis Maier:
Bernhard, naturally one can absolutely fix the matter with specific IHC- or perhaps IF-staining with appropriate antibody/-ies.
If googeling
G'day Madhan Kumar --- I have trouble with RG, so if you email me on my home address [[email protected]] I will see what I can send you. Bye --- Richard
I had quite acceptable results using AZAN stain. It can also demonstrate delta cells not only alpha and beta ones.
It is a long staining and requires some expertise but is quite an acceptable one
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Cell Biology
- Methods