[Histonet] Sanderson's rapid bone stain + Acid fuchsin

[John Kiernan]

Cathy Sanderson wrote a review article about staining undecalcified bone only 11 years ago (which is recent in the literature of histological techniques): 
Sanderson, C. (1997) Entering the realm of mineralized bone processing: A review of the literature and techniques. J. Histotechnol. 20:259-266.  If you're a member of the NSH you can request PDF files from the journal by way of the society's web site. (I hope this is still so; I haven't requested one in the last year.) 

There is an excellent chapter on bonology by Gayle Callis in Bancroft, J.D., and Gamble, M. (eds). Theory and Practice of Histological Techniques: London: Churchill Livingstone. It's Chapter 14 in the 5th edition (2002). I don't have the 6th (2008) edition; chapter numbers may not be the same. 
 
For discussion of the principles involved in staining sections of plastic-embedded tissue, see: 
Horobin RW (1982) Histochemistry: An Explanatory Outline of Histochemistry and Biophysical Staining. Gustav Fischer, Stuttgart.
Horobin RW (1988) Understanding Histochemistry: Selection, Evaluation and Design of Biological Stains. Ellis Horwood, Chichester.
 
Acid fuchsine and basic fuchsine have the same colour but almost opposite staining properties, which have been quite well understood since about 1880.
 
John Kiernan
Anatomy, UWO
London, Canada
= = =
----- Original Message -----
From: sklan <@t> illinois.edu
Date: Monday, December 21, 2009 14:26
Subject: [Histonet] Sanderson's rapid bone stain + Acid fuchsin
To: histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu

> Hi All -
> 
> I am trying to figure out if the combination of Sanderson's 
> rapid bone stain and acid fuchsin as the counterstain (or 
> methylene blue + basic fuchsin) results in pink/red staining of 
> biologically formed apatite (apatite not associated with 
> collagen produced by osteoblasts)?  An associated question 
> is if the dye-tissue interaction between acid or basic fuchsin 
> and mineralized bone is due to dye-collagen interactions?
> 
> If anyone has any experiences or references that may help, 
> please let me know.
> 
> Thank you for your help,
> 
> Sheeny 
> 
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