Abstract
Mixtures of polychrome methylene blue-eosin Y (i.e., Giemsa stain) are widely used in biological staining. They induce a striking purple coloration of chromatin DNA (the Romanowsky-Giemsa effect), which contrasts with the blue-stained RNA-containing cytoplasm and nucleoli. After specific prestaining treatments that induce chromatin disorganization (giving banded or harlequin chromosomes), Giemsa staining produces a differential coloration, with C- and G-bands appearing in purple whereas remaining chromosome regions are blue. Unsubstituted (TT) and bromo-substituted (BT) DNAs also appear purple and blue, respectively. The same occurs in the case of BT and BB chromatids.
In addition to discussing the use of Giemsa stain as a suitable method to reveal specific features of chromosome structure, some molecular processes and models are also described to explain Giemsa staining mechanisms of chromatin.
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Acknowledgements
We thank M. Cañete, J. Espada, and A. Villanueva for valuable collaboration. This work was supported by a grant (CTQ2010-20870-C03-03) from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Spain.
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Stockert, J.C., Blázquez-Castro, A., Horobin, R.W. (2014). Identifying Different Types of Chromatin Using Giemsa Staining. In: Stockert, J., Espada, J., Blázquez-Castro, A. (eds) Functional Analysis of DNA and Chromatin. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1094. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-62703-706-8_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-62703-706-8_3
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