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Volutin Granule Staining

1. Microorganisms store reserve food materials in granules called volutin granules, which are stained using Albert's staining technique. 2. Albert's stain contains toluidine blue and malachite green, which stain volutin granules blue due to their acidic pH, while staining the neutral cytoplasm green. 3. When iodine is applied after staining, it prevents the granules from appearing red due to their metachromatic property, leaving them blue instead against the green cytoplasm.

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Rajeev Potadar
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1K views2 pages

Volutin Granule Staining

1. Microorganisms store reserve food materials in granules called volutin granules, which are stained using Albert's staining technique. 2. Albert's stain contains toluidine blue and malachite green, which stain volutin granules blue due to their acidic pH, while staining the neutral cytoplasm green. 3. When iodine is applied after staining, it prevents the granules from appearing red due to their metachromatic property, leaving them blue instead against the green cytoplasm.

Uploaded by

Rajeev Potadar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

VOLUTIN GRANULE STAINING TECHNIQUE AND ITS

DETAILS
Volutin Granule Staining Technique and its Details

Introduction

 Micro-organism have a special characteristic these organism store reserve food material in the
form of granules.These granules are utilized by these organism when they are in starvation
mode.
 These reserve food granules are also called Volutin granules, Metachromatic granules or Babes
Ernst granules.
 These granules are mainly of four types.

1. Volutin granules.
2. Sulphur granules.
3. Nitrogenous reserve food material.
4. Non-nitrogenous reserve food material.

 These granules are called as Volutin granules because these granules were first observed
in Spirillum volutans.
 It is also called as metachromatic granule because if these granules are stain with blue stain they
appear red in colour so it has a property of changing colour.
 These granules are made up of proteins, RNA and poly-phosphate molecules .
 Volutin granules are mainly present in bacteria, algae,fungi and protozoa.
 These granules are stain by using Albert’s staining method.

Aim
To stain volutin granules by Albert’s staining method.

Requirement

1. Cell suspension.
2. Albert’s stain.
3. Albert’s iodine.

Procedure

1. Prepare a smear on clean grease free slide.


2. Air dry and heat fix the smear.
3. Treat the smear with Albert’s stain and allow it to react for about 3 mins .
4. Drain of the excess stain do not water wash the slide.
5. Flood the smear with Albert’s iodine for 2 minutes.
6. Wash the slide with water,air dry and observe under oil immersion lens

Mechanism

1. Albert stain is basically made up of two stains that is Toluidine blue’ O’ and Malachite green.
2. The pH of Albert stain is adjusted to 2.8 by using acetic acid.
3. As we know cytoplasm of cell has neutral pH so the pH of Albert stain is acidic for cytoplasm.
4. Where as pH of Albert stain is basic for Volutin granules as pH of Volutin Granule is highly acidic.
5. Therefore when we apply Albert’s stain to the smear the stain Toluidine blue’ O’ stains the most
acidic part of cell that is Volutin Granules and Malachite green stains the cytoplasm.
6. As we know due to Metachromatic property when granules are stain with blue stain they appear
red in colour.
7. So here when we apply Albert’s iodine due to effect of iodine the metachromatic property is not
observed and granules appear blue in colour.

Observation
The volutine granules appear bluish black in colour as well as cytoplasm appear light green in colour.

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