Section staining for electron microscopy using tannic acid as a mordant: a simple method for visualization of glycogen and collagen.

The possibility that tannic acid and other classical mordants can be used in the electron microscopical section staining technique has been tested. A mordant can be defined as a chemical that combines with both a certain specific tissue component and the staining substance and thereby permits a staining reaction that otherwise will not be obtained. The following features were found to characterize section staining of tannic acid mordanted sections. Tannic acid apparently blocks those sites that normally would be contrasted by uranyl acetate or some other staining compounds. Ribosomes remain unstained. Glycogen particles, on the other hand, were stained, whereas they are not in non-mordanted sections. In fact, glycogen was the only cytoplasmic component to be contrasted by the uranyl acetate, and collagen the only extracellular component. Several different section staining solutions gave the same staining patterns of examined cells and tissues. Specificity of the reaction thus seems to depend on the mordant rather than on the heavy atom section stain. Some other tested mordants, which have also been used in the light microscopical technique, did not give any useful new information.