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Toluidine Blue O

Dye

Toluidine Blue O

Class: Thiazin
Ionisation: Basic

Chemical structure of Toluidine Blue O

Common Name: Toluidine blue
Suggested Name: Toluidine blue O
Other Names:

Tolonium chloride

C.I. Number: 52040
C.I. Name: Basic blue 17
Color: Blue
Solubility Aqueous: 3.82%
Solubility Ethanol: 3.82%
Absorption Maximum: 620-622 (Conn) 632 (Gurr) 640.4 (Merck) 626 (Aldrich)
Empirical Formula: C15H16N3SCl
Formula Weight: 305.8

Description

Toluidine blue O is a metachromatic dye, and is frequently employed in that capacity. It is a blue nuclear counterstain, and can be used to demonstrate Nissl substance. It is useful for staining mast cell granules, both in metachromatic and orthochromatic techniques. Compare its formula to other methylene blue homologues.

Toluidine blue staining of day 11 diffferentiated myoblasts, 4X magnification

toluidine-blue-staining-d11-differentiated-myoblasts-4x-mag-600x400

Figure 1. Toluidine Blue Staining of Day 11 Diffferentiated Myoblasts

Myoblasts in day 11 differentiated myoblasts were stained with toluidine blue. 4X magnification. This image was contributed by Arthur Sampaio at STEMCELL Technologies.

References

  1. R. D. Lillie.
    Conn’s Biological Stains
    Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore, MD., U.S.A.
  2. Aldrich chemical catalogue, 1992
    Aldrich Chemical Company, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
  3. Edward Gurr, 1971
    Synthetic dyes in biology, medicine and chemistry
    Academic Press, London, England.
  4. Susan Budavari, Editor,
    The Merck Index, Ed. 12
    Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA