General description

Bromocresol Green (BCG), also known as bromcresol green, is a synthetic, anionic, triphenylmethane dye belonging to the phthalein and sulphonphthalein dyes group. It is commonly used as a pH indicator as it changes color from yellow to blue-green at pH 3.8-5.4. The monosodium salt of bromocresol green is highly ionizable in water. The dye at a higher pH level produces a large and weakly lipophilic dianion.

Application

Bromocresol green serves as a pH indicator in biology and medicinal experiments.

It is used widely as a vital stain to study blood-brain permeability.
It is used as a tracking dye for DNA agarose gel electrophoresis, in protein determinations, and in charge-transfer complexation processes.
It is used in TLC for the visualization of compounds with functional groups whose pKa is below 5.0.
It has been used in the pH-sensitive colorimetric determination of glutamate decarboxylase activity.
It has also been employed in the evaluation of paper-analytical devices for colorimetric analysis of serum samples.
It is suitable as a selective inhibitor in kidney physiology studies.