Ahmed,
This is a difficult question. These products work differently. Hematoxylin formulations may be either regressive (Harris) or progressive (Mayer) in nature. Progressive stains (Mayers) have a low hematoxylin concentration that slowly and selectively stains chromatin. Regressive stains (Harris) have high concentration of hematoxylin and the stain rapidly diffuses over the entire cell. The best staining counts on differentially extracting the hematoxylin from the cytoplasm and some from the nucleus. I personally prefer Gill's hematoxylin. It is a specially formulated solution designed to stain the chromatin of normal and abnormal cells, whether in whole cells or sections. Gill's permits longer shelf life with greater reproducability. It stains chromatin at a controlled rate, making differentiation in acid solution unneccessary. Nucleoli are delicately stained so that their acidophilia can be seen. I regularly counterstain cytosplasm with Shandon Eosin Y.
A Decision what kind of haematoxylin to use depends on your experience. Mayer's solution needs a shorter stain time. After Harris stain you have to do acid-alcohol differentiation and filtering before staining. I agree with Renee that Gill's solution is much convinient in work and gives exellent results.
Harris's used to have mercury in its formulation and then thrown down the sink... Obviously times have changed and discarding mercury down the drain is just not on.. So Harris's has been modernisie and is very similar to Gill's. Gill's (1,2 & 3) is also more stable and has pretty much replaced Harris's. I use Gill's No2 for 2 mins with 5% acetic acid as the differentiator 1-2 mins.. Gill's 1 is more of a cytological H and Gill's 3 is too intense (muddy) for my liking... But as many above have pointed out it depends on what the tissue is and you want to see.
Matthew is correct. There are 3 formulations of Gill's and each works best for different purposes. Gill 1 is recommended for use in cytology, Gill 2 for histology and cytology and Gill 3 is better suited for histology. We are most interested in histology and use Gill 3. I will add that different fixatives can have an effect on your results. For example, I would never use an acetone fixation if I wanted to do H&E with Gill's. For aldehyde fixation, we use the following protocol on CNS tissue and it works pretty well and consistently.
I always recommend running a trial run on new tissues or new fixation parameters before staining your whole set of tissue.
For automated staining of a large number of HEs I recommend a progressive hemalaun like Mayer (formula after Langeron). We stain 10 min in hemalaun and change the solution every two weeks after about 1000 slides. Staining result does not differ very much, if you stain 5 or 10 min. This is a kind of "endpoint" staining, and also a (little bit) diluted staining solution is intensive enough as long as the pH is ok. You don't have to filter the staining solution and it has a very long shelf life.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/56a5/e74cd31a38842a4e7f589d0a025bdf336379.pdf
I've realized a ready for use solution of Hematoxylin Gill No. 3 stable at room temperature for one year, that needing just 4 minutes for staining slide according Papanicolau, and rinse with Scott's water for 2 minutes. Specific for to do so: dilute 25 ml (25%) ethylene glycol in 75 ml dH2O, then dissolve 0.605 g Hematoxylin, then dissolve 76 mg potassium periodate and allowed to oxidize the hematoxylin to hematein for ten minutes. Then add 1.33 g aluminum sulphate octadecahydrate was added to the hematein solution, and finally 0.936 g of hydroquinone, and 1.135 g of beta-cyclodextrin hydrate were then added, mix and put into plastic opaque bottle. This hematoxylin solution are ready for use immediately after preparation.
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