Basophilic is a technical term used by pathologists. It describes the appearance of cells, tissues and cellular structures as seen through the

microscope A microscope () is a laboratory equipment, laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic ...

after a histological section has been stained with a basic

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 ...

. The most common such dye is

haematoxylin Haematoxylin American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, or hematoxylin (), also called natural black 1 or Colour Index International, C.I. 75290, is a chemical compound, compound extracted from wood#Heartwood and sapwood, heart ...

. The name basophilic refers to the characteristic of these structures to be stained very well by basic dyes. This can be explained by their charges. Basic dyes are cationic, i.e. contain positive charges, and thus they stain anionic structures (i.e. structures containing negative charges), such as the phosphate backbone of DNA in the

cell nucleus The cell nucleus (; : nuclei) is a membrane-bound organelle found in eukaryote, eukaryotic cell (biology), cells. Eukaryotic cells usually have a single nucleus, but a few cell types, such as mammalian red blood cells, have #Anucleated_cells, ...

and

ribosomes Ribosomes () are macromolecular machines, found within all cells, that perform biological protein synthesis (messenger RNA translation). Ribosomes link amino acids together in the order specified by the codons of messenger RNA molecules to fo ...

. "Basophils" are cells that "love" (from greek "-phil") basic dyes, for example

, azure and

methylene blue Methylthioninium chloride, commonly called methylene blue, is a salt used as a dye and as a medication. As a medication, it is mainly used to treat methemoglobinemia. It has previously been used for treating cyanide poisoning and urinary trac ...

. Specifically, this term refers to: * basophil granulocytes * anterior pituitary basophils An abnormal increase in basophil granulocytes is therefore also described as basophilia."Basophilia" ''Collins Online Dictionary'' 2024 https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/basophilia The opposite of basophilic structures are acidophilic structures, also called eosinophilic. These structures contain many positive charges and are thus strongly stained by anionic dyes like eosin. A typical combination of basophilic and eosinophilic dyes is the

H&E stain Hematoxylin and eosin stain ( or haematoxylin and eosin stain or hematoxylin–eosin stain; often abbreviated as H&E stain or HE stain) is one of the principal tissue stains used in histology. It is the most widely used stain in medical diag ...

, which visualizes basophilic structures in blue and eosinophilic structures in red.

References

{{Stains Histology

See also

References