Cresyl Violet (CV) is a visible oxazine dye that is commonly employed as a histological stain and we have found that is can also be used to stain nucleic acids in electrophoretic gels. Visually, it can distinguish between DNA and RNA, as it stains DNA blue and RNA purple. We have used multiple spectroscopy techniques to explore the structure of the CV as a monomer, as a dimer and as it is bound to nucleic acid molecules. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has been employed specifically to investigate the monomer and dimer forms of CV. Concentration and pH rate profiles, fluorescence spectroscopy, circular dichroism and UV-Vis spectroscopy have also been used to explore the dimer/monomer ratios and the CV-Nucleic acid complexs. The ratio of the dimer to monomer was found to be greater at higher pHs and at higher cresyl violet concentrations. Finally, we have implemented a novel method of <i>in situ</i> ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy to analyze such complexes directly in electrophoretic gels.

Spectroscopic characterization of cresyl violet

254th National Meeting (2017)

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