Automatic Stainer & Screener technique.pptx

1 Year (2 Academic Semester)

1. Automatic Stainer & Screener

2. What is Staining? Most tissues, specially animal tissues, are colorless .  Dyes  are colored substances with affinity for specific molecules of tissues, so they get attached to the tissue and provide color .  Staining  is the process of coloring tissues by using dyes. It allows visualizing cells and extracellular matrix to be studied with light microscopes. Staining is usually done in tissue sections and cell smears. The most common sections for staining are those obtained from paraffin embedding and frozen tissues . A stain is a mixture of dyes that enhance the contrast of the microscopic image. In general, most cells that make up tissues are colorless and transparent. Therefore, tissues are stained in such a way to make the cells visible. 

3. Each dye within the stain selectively highlights a particular chemical entity within a tissue . Therefore, several components of the tissue can be in different colors . Hence, stains give a contrast to the microscopic slide . A dye is a single chemical component contained in a stain. A single dye can highlight a specific type of chemical entity within the tissue . Stain examples- H & E Haemotoxylin stains certain parts of the cell – like the nucleus – blue Eosin stains other parts of the cell – such as the cytoplasm – red or pink . Congo red,Crystal Violet, Giemsa , Aldehyde fuchsin

4. Dyes Examples- Methylene blue, toluidine blue, thionine , carmine, basic fuchsin , and azure II, aniline blue e.t.c . Tissue sample stain by stain Tissue sample stain by dye

5. What is Manual Staining? Manually staining slides allows pathologists to gain a full understanding of the principles and processes of each staining protocol. Technicians can use this knowledge to their advantage by controlling steps; making slight adjustments based on judgment and personal experience to achieve the desired outcome. When staining by hand you exert much more force dipping the slide into the reagent. The force can vary between each slide/rack and can enter the reagent from different angles subject to how the reagent looks .

6.  The extra force causes the reagent to bombard the slide, resulting in the tension of the reagent on the slide to break quicker than it would by a machine and then replaced by the next reagent. Manual staining also allows you to knock off reagent so less reagent clings to the slide, decreasing the consumption of costly reagents . But problem is that laboratorians are not equally skilled, and therefore standardization is impossible.

7. What is Automatic Staining? During staining procedures each slide has to be individually stained and kept for the prescribed amount of time. Each step of staining has to be performed manually. We have to pay attention to each slide and keep a track of time and the stains added. There is a chance of the slides being over stained if the incubation time is exceeded or not stained enough if washed of sooner than required . Staining of multiple slides together takes a lot of time and labour. Thus the process of staining is tedious and time consuming. This calls for the need of : An automated staining device.

8. Automatic Tissue Stainner ? A device that stains our slides automatically. Just enter the slide with the culture heat fixed onto it into the machine. Load the various stains and reagents required in the protocol in the right order. Select the required staying time of each stain or reagent and the washes to be given in between steps etc. on the digital display of the machine. Since the device is fully automated the only thing we need to add are the various stains and reagents. We can also load multiple heat fixed slides which have to be stained in the same manner. Selecting and setting the right protocol and time on the display is very important.