Supravital staining

Supravital staining is a method of staining used in microscopy to examine living cells that have been removed from an organism. It differs from intravital staining, which is done by injecting or otherwise introducing the stain into the body. Thus a supravital stain may have a greater toxicity, as only a few cells need to survive it a short while. The term "vital stain" is used by some authors to refer specifically to an intravital stain, and by others interchangeably with a supravital stain, the core concept being that the cell being examined is still alive. As the cells are alive and unfixed, outside the body, supravital stains are temporary in nature.