Nuclear Fast Red

Nuclear Fast Red (C.l. 60760) is a substituted hydroxy anthraquinone chromophore that can chelate metal ions. It is also known as kernechtrot and 4-Amino-9,10-dihydro-1,3-dihydroxy-9,10-dioxo-2-anthracenesulfonic acid sodium salt. It is used for human-medical cell diagnosis and serves the purpose of the histological investigation of sample material of human origin. It is a dry staining dye that makes target structures (by fixing, wherenecessary embedding, staining with the above nuclear fast red solution, counterstaining, mounting) in human-histological specimen materials, for examplehistological sections of e. g. the kidney, evaluable for diagnostic purposes.

Nuclear fast red has been used for the nuclear staining of PB (Prussian blue) positive cells in the rostral sub-epidermis and upper beak coronal region isolated from pigeons.Recent applications include:

• staining sperm and spermatids in semen
• identifying areas for PCR analysis in paraffin-embedded tissues
• nuclear counterstaining following immunostaining and silver staining

Used as a biological stain

Nuclear fast red dye has anthraquinonic nature and is used either alone or in combination with other dyes. It is mainly used for staining of nuclei.

Nuclear fast red can be used for simple nuclear staining. It is an acidic dyebelonging to the group of anthraquinone dyes. Aluminum sulfate, functioning as a mordant, is added to form a color lake that enables red nuclear staining. Nuclear fast red-aluminum sulfate is used for counterstaining in histochemicalreactions, e. g. in Berlin blue staining for detection of iron or in silver staining. Nuclear fast red for microscopy Certistain^® can also be used fornuclear staining with alcian blue.

CERTISTAIN is a registered trademark of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany