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	Colorazione con Rosso Picrosirio	Rigonfiamento e Degradazione
Campo	Biomateriali	Biomateriali
Famiglia	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Anno di origine	1978	1960
Ideatore	Junqueira, Bignolas, Brentani	Wichterle and Lim
Tipo	Staining assay	Kinetic assay
Fonte seminale	Junqueira, L. C. U., Bignolas, G., & Brentani, R. R. (1978). Picrosirius staining plus polarization microscopy, a specific method for collagen detection in tissue sections. Histochemical Journal, 11(4), 447-455.	Wichterle, O., & Lim, D. (1960). Hydrophilic gels for biological use. Nature, 185(4706), 117-118.
Alias	sirius red, collagen staining, fibrillar collagen assay	hydrogel swelling, polymer degradation, mass loss assay
Correlati	4	4
Sintesi	Picrosirius red (acid red 80) is a direct dye for collagen that binds specifically to the triple helix structure of fibrillar collagens and allows direct visualization and quantification under light and polarized light microscopy. Introduced by Junqueira and colleagues in 1978, picrosirius red staining has become the gold standard for assessing collagen deposition and organization in tissue sections, scaffolds, and cell cultures. The key advantage is that picrosirius red-stained collagen exhibits birefringence under polarized light, enabling researchers to visualize not only the amount of collagen but also its degree of organization and fibril maturity—information crucial for evaluating bone, cartilage, skin, and tendon engineering.	The swelling and degradation assay measures how biomaterial scaffolds absorb water (swelling) and lose mass over time due to degradation. Developed by Wichterle and Lim in 1960 for hydrogels, the assay is fundamental for characterizing hydrogels, synthetic polymers, and composite scaffolds intended for tissue engineering. The assay provides quantitative data on swelling kinetics (equilibrium water content, swelling ratio), degradation kinetics (mass loss rate, half-life), and mechanisms of degradation (chain scission, enzymatic breakdown).