Cytology 02

For this image the spleen section was stained with Hematoxylin, which is a basic dye. While most discussions of acidic/basic, acidophilia/basophilia, etc. are overly simplified, the essential concepts are worth knowing. Basic dyes, such as hematoxylin, bind to substances that are basophilic ("base-loving"); such substances are acidic. In terms of the "typical" cell, acidic substances more or less equates with nucleic acids. So hematoxylin stains structures that contain "lots" of nucleic acids, like the nucleus (DNA) and ribosomes/rough ER (RNA). In this image, most of the stained structures are the nuclei of various cells and it is obvious that some regions have lots of nuclei close together (= many cells with a relatively high ratio of nuclear/cytoplasmic volume; this turns out to be lymphocytes, in the context of the spleen).

Slide A-3, field 17-Q of finder slide A, 16X objective