title: Spectral characteristics of metachromatically stained cartilage: effects of enzymatic degradation and dehydration.
abstract: When a microspectrophotometer was used to study cartilage, stained metachromatically with Azure A and Safranin O, the following 3 points were made: 1. the absorption maximum of stained cartilage matrix is identical to that reported for solutions of these dyes containing chondroitin sulfate; 2. partial enzymatic degradation of the cartilage matrix has no effect on the position of the absorption peak (although the intensity is greatly diminished); 3. ethanolic dehydration shifts the absorption peak somewhat toward the orthochromatic position, and decreases the intensity of the stain.
mesh_terms: D002356:Cartilage / Q000032:analysis; D006801:Humans; D006821:Hyaluronoglucosaminidase; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D013053:Spectrophotometry; D013194:Staining and Labeling
chemical_list: D006821:Hyaluronoglucosaminidase