Word of the Day
EOSIN (EE-uh-suhn)
A red crystalline powder used in textile dyeing, ink manufacturing, and in coloring gasoline.
Common clues: Red dye; Rose-colored dye
Crossword puzzle frequency: once a year
Frequency in English language: 42604 / 86800
Eosin is a fluorescent red dye resulting from the action of bromine on fluorescein. It can be used to stain cytoplasm, collagen and muscle fibers for examination under the microscope.
Eosin is most often used as a counterstain to haematoxylin in H&E (haematoxylin and eosin) staining. H&E staining is one of the most commonly used techniques in histology. Tissue stained with hematoxylin and eosin shows cytoplasm stained pink-orange and nuclei stained darkly, either blue or purple. Eosin also stains red blood cells intensely red. Eosin is an acidic dye and shows up in the basic parts of the cell, ie the cytoplasm. Hematoxylin however is a basic dye and shows up in the acidic part of the cell. For example the nucleus, where nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) are concentrated.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Eosin".
|
|
