Dithizone
Chemical compound
Dithizone is a sulfur-containing organic compound. It is a good ligand, and forms complexes with many toxic metals such as lead, thallium and mercury.
Dithizone may be prepared by reacting phenylhydrazine with carbon disulfide, followed by reaction with potassium hydroxide.
Dithizone is used to assess the purity of human pancreatic islet preparations used for transplantation into patients with type 1 diabetes. Dithizone binds zinc ions present in the islet's beta cells, and therefore stains the islets red. Exocrine tissue also present in the preparations does not bind dithizone, and is therefore not stained.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Dithizone”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Dithizone 3D ball.png by Jynto (talk), CC0
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