Dyes that carry multiple negative charges can introduce background. Usually, this is more of a concern with labeled antibodies that carry many dyes, as opposed to a small toxin like bungarotoxin. When staining tissues, the endogenous autofluorescence of the tissue itself is often the most significant source of background. Endogenous fluorescence background in tissue is usually highest in the blue wavelengths (DAPI channel) and lowest in the far-red (Cy®5 channel). Our CF®633 bungarotoxin (catalog no. 00009) is a far-red conjugate for the Cy®5 channel with a low negative charge that should have low background from either the dye or autofluorescence.
We test fluorescent bungarotoxin on rat skeletal muscle sections. While the tissue shows autofluorescence, the bungarotoxin staining of motor endplates is usually much brighter than the background for all of the dye colors we’ve tested. However, if you are staining human tissue (especially brain), lipofuscin autofluorescence may be bright in all channels. This usually shows up as bright, punctate dots around cell nuclei. While we would usually recommend our TrueBlack® lipofuscin quenchers for human brain tissue, they are not compatible with bungarotoxin staining. We have, however, found that EverBrite TrueBlack® Mounting Medium (cat. no. 23017) can be used to mount skeletal muscle sections stained with bungarotoxin.
Cy Dye is a registered trademark of Cytiva.
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