Abstract
WORK in this Department, to be published elsewhere, has shown that several histological methods for the demonstration of mucin depend for their selectivity on the use of cations of large size. Thus alcian blue, with a molecular weight of about 1,341 (ref. 1), is almost specific for acid mucins, being apparently unable to enter other, more dense, basophilic structures. The dialysed iron method2 similarly depends on the use of large particles (colloidal ferric hydroxide), while in Southgate's mucicarmine the small carmine molecule is probably adsorbed on to colloidal aluminium hydroxide.
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GOLDSTEIN, D. Mechanism of Differential Staining of Nucleic Acids. Nature 191, 407–408 (1961). https://doi.org/10.1038/191407a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/191407a0
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