Applications

A bibenzimidazole dye that has been utilized as a fluorescent stain. It is membrane-permeable and selectively binds to adenine-thymine regions in the minor groove of B-form DNA ^1,2 with a high binding constant, making it a useful stain for DNA, chromosomes, and nuclei ^3,4. It has been shown that the fluorescence is relatively insensitive to the presence of various solution reagents (i.e., BSA, RNA, Tris, sucrose, TEA/EDTA, Triton X-100, and SDS)⁵. Furthermore, the solution ionic strength and pH has been shown to be independent of the Stokes’ shift of bisBenzimide H 33258 ³. The properties of this dye make it useful in several applications such as detecting mycoplasma contamination in tissue culture ^6,7, indicating early onset of apoptosis^8,9, sorting living cells based on DNA content, and acting as a probe for DNA-Drug interactions³. Utilized in the design and