A vital stain in a casual usage may mean a stain that can be applied on living cells without killing them. Vital stains have been useful for diagnostic and surgical techniques in a variety of medical specialties. In supravital staining, living cells have been removed from an organism, whereas intravital staining is done by injecting or otherwise introducing the stain into the body. The term vital stain is used by some authors to refer to an intravital stain, and by others interchangeably with a

supravital stain Supravital staining is a method of staining used in microscopy to examine living cells that have been removed from an organism. It differs from intravital staining, which is done by injecting or otherwise introducing the stain into the body. Thu ...

, the core concept being that the cell being examined is still alive. In a more strict sense, the term vital staining has a meaning contrasting with supravital staining. While in supravital staining the living cells take up the stain, in "vital staining" – the most accepted but apparently paradoxical meaning of this term, the living cells exclude the stain i.e. stain negatively and only the dead cells stain positively and thus viability can be assessed by counting the percentage of total cells that stain negatively. Very bulky or highly charged stains that don't cross live plasma membrane are used as vital stains and supravital stains are those that are either small or are pumped actively into live cells. Since supravital and intravital nature of the staining depends on the dye, a combination of supravital and vital dyes can also be used in a sophisticated way to better classify cells into distinct subsets (e.g. viable, dead, dying etc.).

List of common vital stains

Eosin Eosin is the name of several fluorescent acidic compounds which bind to and form salts with basic, or eosinophilic, compounds like proteins containing amino acid residues such as arginine and lysine, and stains them dark red or pink as a resul ...

dye exclusion *

Propidium iodide Propidium iodide (or PI) is a fluorescent intercalating agent that can be used to stain cells and nucleic acids. PI binds to DNA by intercalating between the bases with little or no sequence preference. When in an aqueous solution, PI has a fluo ...

, DNA stain that can differentiate

necrotic Necrosis () is a form of cell injury which results in the premature death of cells in living tissue by autolysis. Necrosis is caused by factors external to the cell or tissue, such as infection, or trauma which result in the unregulated dige ...

apoptotic Apoptosis (from grc, ἀπόπτωσις, apóptōsis, 'falling off') is a form of programmed cell death that occurs in multicellular organisms. Biochemical events lead to characteristic cell changes ( morphology) and death. These changes incl ...

and normal cells. *

Trypan Blue Trypan blue is an azo dye. It is a direct dye for cotton textiles. In biosciences, it is used as a vital stain to selectively colour dead tissues or cells blue. Live cells or tissues with intact cell membranes are not coloured. Since cells ...

, a living-cell exclusion dye *

Erythrosine Erythrosine, also known as Red No. 3, is an organoiodine compound, specifically a derivative of fluorone. It is a pink dye which is primarily used for food coloring. It is the disodium salt of 2,4,5,7-tetraiodofluorescein. Its maximum absorba ...

, which is Red No. 3 in

food coloring Food coloring, or color additive, is any dye, pigment, or substance that imparts color when it is added to food or drink. They come in many forms consisting of liquids, powders, gels, and pastes. Food coloring is used in both commercial food ...

, can be used as an exclusion dye. *

7-Aminoactinomycin D 7-Aminoactinomycin D (7-AAD) is a fluorescent chemical compound with a strong affinity for DNA. It is used as a fluorescent marker for DNA in fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry. It intercalates in double-stranded DNA, with a high affi ...

used e.g. in flowcytometric studies of hematopoietic stem cell viability. *Other Vital Stains : **

Janus Green B Janus Green B is a basic dye and vital stain used in histology. It is also used to stain mitochondria supravitally, as was introduced by Leonor Michaelis Leonor Michaelis (16 January 1875 – 8 October 1949) was a German biochemist, phys ...

is a basic dye and vital stain used in histology.

References

Staining {{pathology-stub

List of common vital stains

See also

References