Method Article

Masson Goldner Trichrome Staining: A Technique to Visualize Collagen in Heart Sections for Cardiovascular Fibrosis Detection

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July 8th, 2025

In This Article

Abstract

Source: Valentin, J., et al. Histological Quantification of Chronic Myocardial Infarct in RatsJ. Vis. Exp. (2016). 

This video demonstrates the differential staining of collagen fibers, nuclei, and cytoplasm in heart tissue to visualize fibrotic growth associated with cardiac pathologies.

Protocol

1. Masson-Goldner Trichrome Staining

  1. Make tissue sections from paraffin-embedded heart blocks with a manual microtome (thickness: 5 µm).
  2. Stain one slide from each heart part for each rat (3 - 4 transversal sections per slide) with Masson-Goldner trichrome staining.
    1. Melt the slides at 60 °C in an oven. Under a fume hood, deparaffinize them in xylol twice for 10 min each. Rehydrate them in 100% ethanol, 95% ethanol, 70% ethanol, and distilled water for 3 min each.
    2. Fix them in Bouin solution overnight. Then, rinse them in running tap water for 10 - 15 min. Rinse them in distilled water. Incubate them in Mayer's hemat....

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Disclosures

No conflicts of interest declared.

Materials

List of materials used in this article
NameCompanyCatalog NumberComments
Mayer hematoxylinMHS32-1LSigma Aldrich
Acid Fuchsin CI 42685F8129-50GSigma Aldrich
Ponceau Xylidin CI 16150P2395-25GSigma Aldrich
Orange G CI 16230O3756-100GSigma Aldrich
Light green CI 42095L5382-25GSigma Aldrich
Xylol10315083HoneyWell
Ethanol absolute10303990HoneyWell
Sterelogical microscopeSM2800Nikon
Formaldehyde99340Reactolab
Embedding cassetteK113.1Carl Roth
Bersoft Image measurement SoftwareBersoft.comLicensed software

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Tags

Collagen VisualizationHeart Tissue StainingParaffin Section PreparationBouin Solution FixationHematoxylin StainingAcid Fuchsin PonceauPhosphomolybdic Acid Orange GLight Green Dye

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