FEMS Immunology and Medical Microbiology 2007-03-01

Phloxine B, a versatile bacterial stain.

Reuven Rasooly

Index: FEMS Immunol. Med. Microbiol. 49 , 261-5, (2007)

Full Text: HTML

Abstract

The data presented suggest that Phloxine B, a color additive for food, drugs, and cosmetics has a potential use as a nontoxic, faster (<2 min), inexpensive (350 tests for <1 cent material) and simpler to use alternative to Gram staining. Using Phloxine B staining it was possible to differentiate among gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria by visual determination under normal room lighting, light microscopy, fluorescence microscopy and confocal microscopy. This work demonstrated that Phloxine B can be used as a differential versatile bacterial stain and establishes a correlation between the staining properties of the dye and its bactericidal effect.