What is the purpose of safranin in grams stain method Could

What is the purpose of safranin in gram\'s stain method? Could we have used another stain and what effect would it have on your results?

Solution

Answer:

Safranin is the counter stain used. After alcohol or acetone washings of heat fixed bacterial smears, It is necessary to retain the pink colour after adding a counter stain (safranin) then it said to be Gram (-) negative (results). Other than safranin, Carbol fuchsin is also sometimes used to identify anaerobic bacteria instead of safranin, which have no meticulous effects on the results.

Gram staining: This is a bacterial staining technique was investigated by scientist Christian Gram. It is used to identify and classify the bacteria based on the cell wall fluorescence. Normally bacterial peptidoglycan cell wall is negative and stained with crystal violet dye and if it retains the dye in the presence of iodide then it is said to be Gram (+) positive and if it does retain the pink colour after adding a counter stain (safranin) then it said to be Gram (-) negative.

In the absenec of safranin, the bacteria to form a like a clump result in inadequate retaining of Gram-staining to determine the exact type of strain. Therefore, draining is essential step at this time of staining as dye can be easily loaded into the dead bacterial cells to visualize under the microscope after staining.