Geoff Osborne writes: > Would someone happen to know the mode of operation whereby crystal >violet can be used to "quench" autofluorescence in macrophages? I know it >works, but just want to know how it works. Crystal violet is a basic dye that will get into cells fairly readily, and which, being violet, absorbs green light. This allows nonradiative energy transfer to occur between the green autofluorescent material and the crystal violet. However, since crystal violet is pretty much nonfluorescent, the transferred energy is lost nonradiatively. This is a pretty standard mechanism of quenching. -Howard
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