NBD C₆-ceramide can be used to study sphingolipid transport and metabolism mechanisms. It is also used as a selective stain for the Golgi apparatus in live and fixed cells. Complexing fluorescent lipids with bovine serum albuin (BSA) facilitates cell labeling by eliminating the need for organic solvents to dissolve the lipophilic probe - the BSA-complexed probe can be directly dissolved in water. The environment sensitive NBD dye is weakly fluorescent in water but increases in aprotic solvents and other nonpolar environments with excitation/emission maxima ∼466/536 nm.