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Discrimination of the nucleolus by a critical electrolyte concentration method.

1993; Japan Society of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry; Volume: 26; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1267/ahc.26.1

1347-5800

Maria Luiza S. Mello, Benedicto de Campos Vidal, Marly M. Dantas, Ana Lúcia P. Monteiro,

RNA and protein synthesis mechanisms

A new technique for the visualization of the nucleolus based on a variant of the previously reported critical electrolyte concentration method for nucleoprotein complexes is proposed. The method consists of treating toluidine blue-stained preparations with Mg2+ ions in a concentration such that ribonucleoprotein complexes are metachromatically highlighted, while DNA-protein complexes attain their critical electrolyte concentration point, thus losing metachromasy. The technique, which is applicable to plant and animal cells, is proposed for studies involving identification, morphometry and eventually changes in substructure of the nucleolus at the light microscopy level.