Phenylfluorone, a new staining agent with higher selectivity for tin.

In order to search for a new staining agent with higher selectivity for particular metals, the ability of fluorone derivatives to histochemically stain metals present in rat tissues was examined. Among a variety of metals tested, phenylfluorone showed intense staining only for tin. The phenylfluorone method was superior to the conventional gallein method with regard to selectivity when staining for tin among various metals in histochemical practice.