ISSN:
1432-119X
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Biology
,
Medicine
Notes:
Summary Reduction of Nitro-Blue Tetrazolium in dehydrogenase histochemistry results in a blue di-formazan and a red reduction intermediate, half-formazan. Hence, a correct quantitation of dehydrogenase reactions using NBT should involve separate quantitation of both reaction products. A quantitation method already mentioned in the literature is applied to the measurement of half-formazan; dehydrogenase activities are expressed in molar terms, as the amount of NBT molecules that are fully or partially reduced. Furthermore, the ratio di-formazan/half-formazan, and its variations under various experimental conditions, can now be calculated. Finally, a method is described to isolate the pure half-formazan, and evidence is presented that this compound can be fully reduced to di-formazan by the cellular dehydrogenases under appropriate histochemical conditions. Provided its two reduction products can be measured seperately, NBT appears to be perfectly suitable for quantitative histochemical purposes.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00490268
