To heighten the contrast between viruses and the background, use is made of electron-dense "stains". These are usually compounds of heavy metals of high atomic number, that serve to scatter the...
When a stain, such as an acid dye, cannot penetrate the outer layers of a microbe, the cell will appear transparent on a colored background. This stain is called a negative or background stain. It is...
Spores are impermeable structures which makes them resistant to dying. Spore staining depends on increasing the permeability of the spore coat by heating to permit the dye in. Upon cooling the dye is...
Gram stain is used to determine whether the cell is gram positive or negative. Gram positive is when the cell has very thick layers of peptidoglycan, and gram negative when the layers are thin. In...