Utility of Basic Stains in Gomori’s One Step Trichrome Staining Protocol

Abstract

The classical Gomori’s one step trichrome method is a widely used trichrome staining method that involves chromatrope 2R as plasma stain, Aniline blue as fibre stain and haematoxylin as nuclear stain. In this paper, an attempt was made to ascertain the compatibility of basic stains such as Azure B and basic Fuchsin with aforementioned method in order to replace haematoxylin qualitatively with a view to highlight nuclear staining alongside the connective tissue staining. Basic fuchsin imparted a purple to violet hue to the entire section and stained the nuclei with muddy red colour, when it followed Gomori’s trichrome staining and thus was revealed as not only a poor substitute of haematoxylin but also incompatible with the aforesaid method. Azure B however, stained the nuclei efficiently and selectively with evident nuclear metachromasia and was established to be a visually better alternative to haematoxylin when used in Gomori’s one step trichrome method.