Auramine O is a diarylmethane

dye Juan de Guillebon, better known by his stage name DyE, is a French musician. He is known for the music video of the single "Fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical ele ...

used as a fluorescent

stain A stain is a discoloration that can be clearly distinguished from the surface, material, or medium it is found upon. They are caused by the chemical or physical interaction of two dissimilar materials. Accidental staining may make materials app ...

. In its pure form, Auramine O appears as yellow needle crystals. It is insoluble in water and soluble in

ethanol Ethanol (also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound with the chemical formula . It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, with its formula also written as , or EtOH, where Et is the ps ...

and

DMSO Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is an organosulfur compound with the formula . This colorless liquid is the sulfoxide most widely used commercially. It is an important polar aprotic solvent that dissolves both polar and nonpolar compounds and is ...

. Auramine O can be used to stain

acid-fast Acid-fastness is a physical property of certain bacterial and eukaryotic cells, as well as some sub-cellular structures, specifically their resistance to decolorization by acids during laboratory staining procedures. Once stained as part of a sa ...

bacteria (e.g. ''

Mycobacterium ''Mycobacterium'' is a genus of over 190 species in the phylum Actinomycetota, assigned its own family, Mycobacteriaceae. This genus includes pathogens known to cause serious diseases in mammals, including tuberculosis (''Mycobacterium tuberculo ...

'', where it binds to the

mycolic acid Mycolic acids are long fatty acids found in the cell walls of Mycobacteriales taxon, a group of bacteria that includes ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'', the causative agent of the disease tuberculosis. They form the major component of the cell wall ...

in its cell wall) in a way similar to

Ziehl–Neelsen stain The Ziehl-Neelsen stain, also known as the acid-fast stain, is a bacteriological staining technique used in cytopathology and microbiology to identify acid-fast bacteria under microscopy, particularly members of the ''Mycobacterium'' genus. This ...

. It can also be used as a fluorescent version of the

Schiff reagent : The Schiff test is an early organic chemistry named reaction developed by Hugo Schiff, and is a relatively general chemical test for detection of many organic aldehydes that has also found use in the staining of biological tissues. The Schiff ...

. Auramine O can be used together with

Rhodamine B Rhodamine B is a chemical compound and a dye. It is often used as a tracer dye within water to determine the rate and direction of flow and transport. Rhodamine dyes fluorescence, fluoresce and can thus be detected easily and inexpensively with f ...

as the Truant auramine-rhodamine stain for ''

Mycobacterium tuberculosis ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (M. tb), also known as Koch's bacillus, is a species of pathogenic bacteria in the family Mycobacteriaceae and the causative agent of tuberculosis. First discovered in 1882 by Robert Koch, ''M. tuberculosis'' ha ...

''. It can be also used as an

antiseptic An antiseptic ( and ) is an antimicrobial substance or compound that is applied to living tissue to reduce the possibility of sepsis, infection, or putrefaction. Antiseptics are generally distinguished from ''antibiotics'' by the latter's abil ...

agent.

References

External links

Auramine O spectra data
{{Stains Diarylmethane dyes Staining dyes Antiseptics Hydrochlorides