Stain Albert
Understanding Stain Albert
What is Stain Albert?
About
Stain Albert is a special type of staining technique used to detect and analyze special structures in bacteria.
Uses
It is majorly used to detect metachromatic granules in bacteria Corynebacterium diphtheriae, which causes Diphtheria. The metachromatic granules show purple-black staining in the green-stained cytoplasm. This technique helps in identifying Diphtheria from non-pathogenic diphtheroids, which lack metachromatic granules.
Medical / lifestyle treatment
It is a medical diagnostic procedure. Albert stain is made up of two staining solutions — solution 1, solution2, and distilled water. The only limitation of Stain Albert is that it does not stain any inclusion bodies in the cytoplasmic membrane.
Advantages
The metachromatic granules get stained black and are displayed as a contrast to the rest of the body of the organism, this leads to detection of the Diphtheria bacillus even when only a few are present in the smear.
What is Stain Albert used for?
- The Albert stain test is performed when symptoms of diphtheria appear or a person is suspected to have been exposed to the pathogen
- To distinguish it from non pathogenic species
Other tests
