Ribonuclease-gold labels chondroitin sulphate in guinea pig basophil granules

Basophilic leucocytes are metachromatic granule-containing secretory granulocytes that contain a mixture of granular proteoglycans devoid of heparin. In guinea pigs, isolated basophilic leucocyte granules primarily contain chondroitin sulphate. We have recently demonstrated that an enzyme-affinity-gold technique to image RNA, using the reagent RNase gold, also binds specifically to heparin in human mast cell granules. Such binding is based on the known property of heparin as a competitive inhibitor of RNase. Using similar methods, we show here that RNase-gold binds to the chondroitin sulphate in the secretory granules of guinea pig basophils, thus broadening the applicability of this post-embedding affinity-gold method to studies that require imaging of chondroitin sulphate in routinely prepared electron microscopical samples.