What is negative staining and how does it work?

Answer 1

Negative staining is a technique used to visualize cells. It is called a negative stain because it is a negatively charged dye. Since most cells are negatively charged themselves, they repel negative staining, meaning that this stain does not attach to their cell walls. Instead the background or plate holding the cells are stained instead of the cells. This creates an outline of the cells which helps us to determine what size and shape the cells are.