Negative Staining
Synonyms
Staining, Negative
The technique of washing tissue specimens with a concentrated solution of a heavy metal salt and letting it dry. The specimen will be covered with a very thin layer of the metal salt, being excluded in areas where an adsorbed macromolecule is present. The macromolecules allow electrons from the beam of an electron microscope to pass much more readily than the heavy metal; thus, a reversed or negative image of the molecule is created.