basophilic
Sign in to savethumb|Main staining types when using hematoxylin and eosin (H&E). thumb|A Basophil granulocyte stains dark purple upon H&E staining. Basophilic is a technical term used by pathologists. It describes the appearance of cells, tissues and cellular structures as seen through the microscope after a histological section has been stained with a basic dye. The most common such dye is haematoxylin.
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thumb|Main staining types when using hematoxylin and eosin (H&E). thumb|A Basophil granulocyte stains dark purple upon H&E staining. Basophilic is a technical term used by pathologists. It describes the appearance of cells, tissues and cellular structures as seen through the microscope after a histological section has been stained with a basic dye. The most common such dye is haematoxylin.
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 and ribosomes.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “basophilic” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.