Commonly used Stains and its Applications

Commonly used Stains and its Applications

Lactophenol cotton blue stain is the most widely used for staining and observing fungi. Giemsa stain is a Romanowsky stain, widely used in microbiology laboratory for staining of blood and blood parasites like malarial protozoans. Calcofluor white stain is commonly used stain to directly detect the fungal elements in tissues and in culture.

Acridine orange stain is used to confirm the presence of bacteria in blood cultures when Gram stain results are difficult to interpret using light microscopy. The stain binds to nucleic acid and stains them. It is also used for the detection of cell wall deficient bacteria example Mycoplasma. Fluorochrome stains such as auramine-rhodamine stains are readily available to detect the bacteria in the specimens through Fluorescent microscopy.