生物压榨机

The BioSqueezer is used to quickly freeze 10-100 mg of soft animal and human tissue. Fresh tissue is compressed into a thin disc about the size of a coin under the pressure of a stainless steel clamp head that has been pre-cooled in liquid nitrogen or dry ice. Freezing occurs in a few milliseconds, thus giving a snapshot of metabolic events in the cells. The hard frozen disc is easily fragmented or ground without thawing for subsequent extraction of labile nucleic acids, proteins and intracellular metabolite products.

 

 

Operation of the BioSqeezer: A small beaker, styrofoam cup or similiar vessel is placed on the BioSqueezer platform and the clamp head is lowered into the vessel. Liquid N2 is slowly poured into the vessel until the boiling action of the liqN2 subsides. The cooling process takes about a minute and, once cooled, the stainless steel clamp remains adequately cold for several minutes. The vessel is removed, the fresh tissue sample, by itself or already in a poly-bag, is placed on the BioSqueezer platform and the cold metal clamp is quickly lowered. Clamping must be done rapidly or the sample will freeze uncompressed.

 

It is instructional to adjust the BioSqeezer using 'practice' tissue. The optimal clamp setting can vary with the softness and size of the tissue sample. Clamping force and the degree of squeezing on the tissue can be adjusted by changing the position of the metal clamp head by hand-turning the wing nut, black plastic nut and the stainless steel hex bolt.

 

If desired, the thin waffer of tissue can be manually fragmented inside the poly bag while still frozen. Tissue in small, thin pieces is ideal for quick homogenization or preservation in appropriate stabilizing solutions such as "RNAlater" or other excipients.