Modified bismarck brown staining for demonstration of soft tissue mast cells

Abstract

Bismarck brown staining is a suitable method for demonstration of mast cells in peripheral tissues. However, apart from the intensive color of the mast cell granules, almost no other structures are visible after this staining, which may compromise the results and discourage the investigator. In the present report, we validate the applicability of the Bismarck brown staining of soft tissue and introduce a modification of the method to improve the quality of the histological preparation. Counterstaining with haematoxylin produces specimens with superb contrast and high analytical value. We consider our method involving counterstaining to be superior to the classical Toluidine blue staining, because of the greater contrast of mast cells, which makes evaluation easier, while the preparations are suitable for automated image analysis as well.

Mast cell reaction to acupuncture on tongue

“…Previously published research of ours found out that in rats of different ages the distribution of MCs in rat tongue was different (1). The researchers use classical histological staining techniques: Toluidine blue and Bismarck brown for visualization of MCs in rats' tissue (11,12). Bismarck brown was more selective stain for mast cells (13).…”