FACILITATING IMAGE-ANALYSIS OF GLYCOLMETHACRYLATE EMBEDDED TISSUES WITH TISSUE-SELECTIVE AND RESIN-SELECTIVE DYES, CHOSEN BY A NUMERICAL STRUCTURE-STAINING RELATIONSHIP MODEL

A method facilitating recording of macroscopic images from glycolmethacrylate (GMA) embedded tissues and tissue-free sections is described. This method used dyes that selectively stain only tissue, only resin, or both, but in contrasting colors. The dyes were selected on the basis of simple numerical parameters like ionic weight, charge, and log P(oct).Contrasting colors were readily converted into contrasting gray values and were so recorded for morphometric investigations, permitting areas of tissue and overall areas of resin sections to be easily measured with an image analysis system. The time saving compared to manual procedures was substantial, about 50%.We found that the small hydrophilic dyes (