Using Nile Blue and Nile Red to visualise the presence of lipids in cryosectioned tissues

Posted by Stuart Fraser, on 14 September 2021

Lipids are crucial elements of mammalian (and non-mammalian) cell biology and yet lipids are challenging to visualise in situ. In comparison to proteins, which we can generate antibodies for, or carbohydrates, some of which we can detect using fluorescent lectins, there are relatively few lipid-specific fluorescent probes. Many lipids are highly conserved across species making