[Histonet] Re: Feulgen stain

[Bob Richmond]

Elizabeth Chlipala wrote:

>>Does anyone out there know if you can purchase this reagent, from my searches it looks like a modified Schiff reagent.  When someone is requesting this stain as the Feulgen and Rossenbeck is it just the Feulgen stain?<<

The Feulgen stain for DNA uses hydrochloric acid to cleave vicinal
diol bonds and oxidize them to aldehyde groups that are then
demonstrated with Schiff reagent. The specificity of the stain rests
with the hydrochloric acid step - concentration, time, and
temperature.

I doubt a special Schiff reagent is needed. Brewing your own Schiff
reagent tends to be a prescription for misery. I worked in a research
histochemistry lab about 40 years ago where we brewed our own (Menzies
method) but I couldn't see it really made a lot of difference from the
commercial (then Harleco) reagent.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN