"Lactophenol is used as ... Does anyone know of a substitute for these
staining solutions: I want to get rid of the phenol..."
Summary of answers:
_____________________________________
From: jmhi at cybercom.net (Jeffrey C. May):
"1% Acid fuchsin in lactic acid works fine. Don't use the phenol!"
_____________________________________
From: boytrytis at peachnet.campus.mci.net (David Slomczynski):
"I haven't found a replacement, yet. The problem is not neccessarily the
phenol (there are certain over the counter medications that use more phenol
- Chloraseptic and other - we injest it). I don't think I would worry so
much about it - You normally use so little that is shouldn't affect
anything.
_____________________________________
From: dpfister at oeb.harvard.edu (Donald Pfister):
"try lactic acid alone"
_____________________________________
From: Helen TURNER <H.C.Turner at greenwich.ac.uk>
I often use toluidine blue in aqeous solution (0.05% w/v or lower).
This stains hyphal cytoplasm and spores quite nicely, and I've also
used it to visualise the hyphae of fungal pathogens within (hand or
cryotome) sectioned leaf and root material. Leaf material can be a
bit of a problem, since hyphae stain purple and mesophyll cytplasm
stains blue. Looks OK to the eye, but hard to distinguish in
black-and-white photographs, if you're looking to publish without
having to pay for inclusion of colour plates.
I have also used aqueous aniline blue for staining fungi with some
success. One other thing you might try, if you have access to a UV
microscope - a number of fungi fluoresce quite nicely under UV
illumination, especially if you add some dilute fluorescent
brightener (e.g. from Sigma-Aldrich). Works a treat for showing
pathogens growing over leaf surfaces, but not good for picking up
hyphae inside host tissues.
Hope this helps,
___________________________________________
Thanks to all!
Yvan Lindekens.
