I think you hit on most of them.

It is PAS digestion resistant? That would help confirm that it is NOT
glycogen.

Azure A will stain acid mucins a metachromatic violet to red, but neutral
mucins (and background) should remain orthochromatic blue.

Aldehyde fuchsin stains acid mucins, particularly strongly sulfated, but not
neutral mucins.

Anatech, Ltd. has a yellow dye called "HP yellow" used to stain the mucin
yellow on stomach and duodenal biopsies when looking for helicobacter. I
think it stains neutral mucins not acid mucins, in a chemical reaction
possibly similar to the PAS. I may be way off base on this, so look forward
to Dick Dapson's response.

I also remember a newsletter about staining from Anatech, and there was a
picture of glands from a salamander (maybe about 2 years ago). It was
stained with their HP yellow and their version of Congo red (sorry, don't
remember the name) and an aluminum hematoxylin (?Mayer, ?Harris). So some of
the glands were stained yellow inside, and some glands were stained red
inside, and the nuclei were blue. I don't know if Dick ever figured out/said
exactly what the chemical nature of the glandular secretions were. I just
remember it made a pretty picture.

As for control - use stomach. The mucin glands contain neutral mucin. Or use
duodenum. The goblet cells are a combination of acid and neutral mucins, but
the Brunner's glands are neutral mucin.

Peggy A. Wenk, HTL(ASCP)SLS
William Beaumont Hospital
Royal Oak, MI 48073

----- Original Message -----
From: 
To: 
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 12:27 AM
Subject: [Histonet] neutral mucus stain?


>
>
> Does anyone know of a diagnostic stain for neutral mucus?  OR does anyone
know a
> good control tissue we could use?  We have identified a PAS +, alcian blue
> negative, toluidine blue orthochromatic, carmine red slight positive (and
we
> know it's not glycogen) exocrine gland secretion (in an amphibian) and
think it
> is neutral mucus.  IS there anything else we can try that isn't redundant?
>
> thank you much.
>
> Nancy Staub
> Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Histonet mailing list
> Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu
> http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet


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