Toluidine Blue O Staining of Paraffin-Sectioned Maize Tissue

Histology incorporates microtechnique, the preparation of living material for observation and microscopy to study the anatomy of cells, tissues and organs. Interpreting histological patterns in a specimen may help to correlate form and function at the cellular, tissue and organ levels. Many stain options and staining methods (“schedules”) for plant tissues have been described previously (Johansen, 1940; Jensen, 1962; O’Brien and McCully, 1981; Sylvester and Ruzin, 1994; Ruzin, 1999). Here, we present a straightforward, inexpensive protocol that uses Toluidine Blue O (TBO) to stain maize tissue. TBO is a general metachromatic stain that can be used on paraffin-embedded histological sections, as well as fixed, hand-sectioned material. The value of TBO as a stain is the inherent metachromasia, whereby the dye is altered by pH resulting in violet blue color variants. This property is particularly useful even in sectioned material for identifying acidic components of plant cells. We demonstrate the utility of TBO staining for cellular-, tissue- and organ-level studies using maize seedling root, shoot apex and mature leaf (Figure 2)., [摘要] 组织学结合了微技术，用于观察和显微镜检查的活材料的制备，以研究细胞，组织和器官的解剖学，解释标本的组织学模式可能有助于在细胞，组织和器官水平上关联形式和功能。先前已经描述了植物组织的染色选择和染色方法（“时间表”）（Johansen ，1940； Jensen，1962； O'Brien和McCully，1981； Sylvester和Ruzin ，1994；Ruzin ，1999）。 在此，我们提出了一种简单，便宜的方案，该方案使用甲苯胺蓝O（TBO）对玉米组织进行染色.TBO是一种普通的变色染色剂，可用于石蜡包埋的组织学切片以及固定的手工切片材料TBO作为染色剂的价值是固有的变色，通过pH改变染料会导致紫蓝色变色。即使在用于鉴定植物细胞酸性成分的切片材料中，该特性也特别有用。使用玉米幼苗根，茎尖和成熟叶对细胞，组织和器官水平的染色进行染色（图2 ）。