Your cart is currently empty!
Eosinophilic vs Basophilic: How to tell the difference
You’re probably here because the words eosinophilic, acidophilic and basophilic keep coming up in texts, and you are utterly confused at this point. As a former medical student, I share that pain, and I have created this article to clear this out for you once and for all. Check out the other article for more details on the systematic approach to identifying and describing histological slides. Now get ready for the ultimate showdown: Eosinophilic Vs Basophilic? What’s the difference? You’re soon going to find out!
H&E Stain
Before we understand those terms, we need to learn about what gives rise to all of these above mentioned characteristics that confused us so much. Haematoxylin and eosin stain, or H&E stain, is a vital tissue stain in histology. It’s widely used in medical diagnosis, often considered the gold standard. Haematoxylin is acidic, and eosin is basic in nature. Bases are neutralized by acids. Therefore, the basic dye stains structures that are acidic in nature. This indicates that basophilic cells contain a lot of acids, and vice versa.
- Basophilic structures appear in deep blue colour.
- Eosinophilic structures appear in light pink colour.
Eosinophilic or acidophilic cells prefer the acidic dye, Eosin. As a result, they absorb more of this dye than Haematoxylin and can be observed in histological sections in light pink colour. Structures that absorb acidic dye are basic in nature because bases attract acids. Eosinophilic structures, in general, consist of protein, such as collagen.
Basophilic Components in Tissues
- Nucleic Acids
- Heterochromatin -nucleolus)
- RNA – Ribosome, Rough Endoplasmic Reticulum (RER)
- Chondrin – Cartilage
Eosinophilic (Acidophilic) Components in Tissues
- Intracellular membranes
- Cellular protein filaments – Actin and Myosin in muscle fibres,
- Extracellular proteins – Collagen
Comparison: Acidophilic Vs Basophilic
| Eosinophilic / Acidophilic | Basophilic |
| Stained with Eosin (Acidic Dye) | Stained with Haematoxylin (Basic dye) |
| Light Pink | Deep Blue |
| Loves Acids and therefore consist of basic components | Loves Bases and therefore consist of acidic components |
| Eosinophilic Tissues | Basophilic Tissues |
|---|---|
| Collagen fibres | Nuclei of cells |
| Muscle fibres (Striated) | Reticular fibers |
| Red Blood Cells (RBCs) | RNA-rich areas in cells |
| Cytoplasm of some cells | Golgi apparatus |
| Extracellular matrix (ECM) | |
| Keratinized layers of skin |
| Eosinophilic Staining | Basophilic Staining |
|---|---|
| Red blood cells (erythrocytes) | Basophils (a type of white blood cell) |
| Squamous epithelial cells | Neurons |
| Striated muscle cells | Basophils (a type of WBC) |
| Keratinocytes (skin cells) | Plasma cells |
| Fibroblasts | Myeloid progenitor cells |
One response to “Eosinophilic vs Basophilic: How to tell the difference”
-
[…] Vast majority of the tissues we come across in histology and histopathology are stained by H&E stain. The stained structures are describes as eosinophilic or basophilic. I have created a separate article for those who want to understand the difference between the terms eosinophilic and basophilic. […]
Leave a Reply