Cell Isolation

Protein isolation is a technique that involves isolation and/ or purification of protein from cells or tissues via chromatography or electrophoresis. The major challenges in protein isolation include: 1. The concentration of proteins in cells is variable and tends to be small for some intracellular proteins. Unlike nucleic acids, proteins cannot be amplified. 2. Proteins are more unstable than nucleic acids. They are easily denatured under suboptimal temperature, pH or salt concentrations. 3. Finally, no generalized technique/protocol can be applied for protein isolation. Proteins may have different electrostatic (number of positively or negatively charged amino acids) or hydrophobic properties. Therefore, protein purification requires multiple steps depending on their charge (a negatively charged resin/column for positively charged proteins and vice-versa), dissolution (using detergents) and unlike in the case of DNA and RNA, instead of using salts, proteins should be isolated by isoelectric precipitation.

Protein isolation is a technique that involves isolation and/ or purification of protein from cells or tissues via chromatography or electrophoresis. The major challenges in protein isolation include: 1. The concentration of proteins in cells is variable and tends to be small for some intracellular proteins. Unlike nucleic acids, proteins cannot be amplified. 2. Proteins are more unstable than nucleic acids. They are easily denatured under suboptimal temperature, pH or salt concentrations. 3. Finally, no generalized technique/protocol can be applied for protein isolation. Proteins may have different electrostatic (number of positively or negatively charged amino acids) or hydrophobic properties. Therefore, protein purification requires multiple steps depending on their charge (a negatively charged resin/column for positively charged proteins and vice-versa), dissolution (using detergents) and unlike in the case of DNA and RNA, instead of using salts, proteins should be isolated by isoelectric precipitation.

Protein isolation is a technique that involves isolation and/ or purification of protein from cells or tissues via chromatography or electrophoresis. The major challenges in protein isolation include: 1. The concentration of proteins in cells is variable and tends to be small for some intracellular proteins. Unlike nucleic acids, proteins cannot be amplified. 2. Proteins are more unstable than nucleic acids. They are easily denatured under suboptimal temperature, pH or salt concentrations. 3. Finally, no generalized technique/protocol can be applied for protein isolation. Proteins may have different electrostatic (number of positively or negatively charged amino acids) or hydrophobic properties. Therefore, protein purification requires multiple steps depending on their charge (a negatively charged resin/column for positively charged proteins and vice-versa), dissolution (using detergents) and unlike in the case of DNA and RNA, instead of using salts, proteins should be isolated by isoelectric precipitation.

When extracting nucleic acids from cell cultures, thorough homogenization of cells via vortexing in lysis buffer is very necessary. Choose the best RNA isolation method keeping in mind the downstream applications, generally, column-based isolations result in clean and concentrated RNA samples. Downstream applications like sequencing and cDNA synthesis require high-quality RNA, always treat the samples with DNases and check their integrity by running a gel.

When extracting nucleic acids from cell cultures, thorough homogenization of cells via vortexing in lysis buffer is very necessary. Choose the best RNA isolation method keeping in mind the downstream applications, generally, column-based isolations result in clean and concentrated RNA samples. Downstream applications like sequencing and cDNA synthesis require high-quality RNA, always treat the samples with DNases and check their integrity by running a gel.

Get tips on using TriPure Isolation Reagent to perform RNA isolation / purification Tissue - rat pancreas tissue

Get tips on using TriPure Isolation Reagent to perform RNA isolation / purification Tissue - mouse liver tissue

Get tips on using TriPure Isolation Reagent to perform RNA isolation / purification Tissue - mouse muscle tissue

Plasmid isolation is an important technique in molecular biology or any kind of genetic editing. It involves amplifying plasmids overnight by transforming them into competent bacterial cells. The desired colonies of these bacteria can then be grown in shaker cultures, at appropriate shaking speed, oxygen availability and temperature. These liquid cultures can then be ultracentrifuged to pellet the bacteria, which are then used for plasmid isolation. The bacteria are first resuspended in a buffer, then lysed, neutralized, purified in a column, eluted, precipitated with ethanol and then resuspended. During plasmid isolation, it is important to lyse cells quickly because lysing bacteria for too long may lead to irreversible denaturing of the plasmid. Usually, alkaline lysis is used for isolation because it is a mild treatment. It isolates plasmid DNA and other cell components such as proteins by breaking cells apart with an alkaline solution. Precipitation removes the proteins, and the plasmid DNA recovers with alcohol precipitation. Resuspension and lysis buffers should be mixed thoroughly in order to prevent the DNA from breaking into smaller fragments. This is because broken gDNA can reanneal and remain in the solution, without binding to the column.

The challenge in isolating RNA from S. aureus cells is the disruption of the cell wall. A lot of protocols employ enzymatic digestion (pretreatment) which may affect gene expression patterns of certain genes. Therefore physical disruption using beads is considered to be the better alternative.