Feulgen hydrolysis at refrigerator temperature

Abstract

In order to search for the better FEULGEN hydrolysis conditions, the 2 kinds of hydrolysis with 5 N HCl - at room temperature and at refrigerator temperature - were comparatively studied on rat liver imprints. 2 reactions were used: with the SCHIFF reagent binding to aldehyde groups and with methylene blue staining phosphate groups of DNA. Cytophotometry was coupled with morphological examination of stained nuclei. It was found that 1. cold hydrolysis has no substantial advantage when revealing DNA with the SCHIFF reagent but 2. it has undoubtful profit to reveal DNA, and in particular its acid-labile fraction, when staining with methylene blue. With the cold hydrolysis-methylene blue technique at least 3 categories of DNA with different acid-lability can be revealed and characterized morphologically in rat liver nuclei.