Bisbenzimide

FormulaC₂₅H₂₄N₆O

Molecular mass

Molecular mass

The molecular mass of a substance is the mass of one molecule of that substance, in unified atomic mass unit u...

533.88 amu



Bisbenzimide is an organic compound

Organic compound

An organic compound is any member of a large class of gaseous, liquid, or solid chemical compounds whose molecules contain carbon. For historical reasons discussed below, a few types of carbon-containing compounds such as carbides, carbonates, simple oxides of carbon, and cyanides, as well as the...

 used as a fluorescent stain for DNA in molecular biology applications. It is an intercalating agent between Adenine-Thymine base pairs. Several bisbenzimides are used and are collectively called Hoechst stain

Hoechst stain

Hoechst stains are part of a family of blue fluorescent dyes used to stain DNA. These Bis-benzimides were originally developed by the Hoechst AG, which numbered all their compounds so that the dye Hoechst 33342 is the 33342nd compound made by the company. There are three related Hoechst stains:...

s.

Application

Bisbenzimide tends to insert into A-T rich regions of DNA and can decrease its density. Bisbenzimide mixed with DNA samples can then be used to separate DNA according to their AT percentage using a Cesium Chloride (CsCl) gradient centrifugation.