What is Albert staining in microbiology?

Albert’s staining technique is a type of special staining technique since it is used to demonstrate a special structure in bacteria. It is chiefly used to demonstrate metachromatic granules found in Corynebacterium diphtheriae. This bacterium is responsible for the disease diphtheria.

What type of stain is Albert stain?

Albert stain is a type of differential stain used for staining high-molecular-weight polymers of polyphosphate known as metachromatic granules or volutin granules found in Corynebacterium diphtheriae. Metachromatic granules are also found in Yersinia pestis, and Mycobacterium species.

What is the principle of Albert staining?

Albert’s Metachromatic Stain demonstrates the presence of metachromatic granules found in Corynebacterium diphtheria. The granules stain purple-black against the light green counterstained cytoplasm. This helps to distinguish diphtheria from most of the short nonpathogenic diphtheroides which lack granules.

Which staining is used to detect metachromatic granules?

In the non-specific Neisser procedure, methylene blue, crystal violet and chrysoidine are used for the detection of metachromatic granules, or so-called Babes-Ernst polar bodies, especially in diphtheria bacteria.

What does Ziehl Neelsen stain?

Ziehl–Neelsen staining is a bacteriological stain used to identify acid-fast organisms, mainly Mycobacteria. It is named for two German doctors who modified the stain: the bacteriologist Franz Ziehl (1859–1926) and the pathologist Friedrich Neelsen (1854–1898).

What is metachromatic stain?

1 : staining or characterized by staining in a different color or shade from what is typical metachromatic granules in a bacterium. 2 : having the capacity to stain different elements of a cell or tissue in different colors or shades metachromatic stains.

What is the importance of Albert staining?

What are the types of stains?

Seven Types of Stain

Oil Stain. Oil stains are the most widely available and the type of stain most people think of when they think of stain.
Varnish Stain. Varnish stains resemble oil stains in every way but one.
Gel Stain.
Lacquer Stain.
Water-Soluble Dye Stain.
Metal-Complex (Metalized) Dye Stain.

Why is metachromatic stain used?

Metachromatic staining is important in the detection of mast cells and is strongly recommended as a routine stain for this purpose. One of the most frequently metachromatic stains is toluidine blue which stains the mast cell granules purple-to-red (Fig. 1).

What is metachromatic effect?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Metachromasia (var. metachromasy) is a characteristical change in the color of staining carried out in biological tissues, exhibited by certain dyes when they bind to particular substances present in these tissues, called chromotropes.