A Tabletop Ultracentrifuge for Membrane and Nucleic Acid Preparations

本建议书是为购买一台台式超离心机而提交的。这种类型的离心机对细胞组分的分离和核酸样品的纯化特别有用，其中需要小体积，高速和短旋转时间。该仪器将用于三个主要项目：(1)膜制备：细菌膜组分的分离和重构将在大肠杆菌孔蛋白和其他细菌离子通道的电生理研究背景下进行。(2)为了研究非洲爪蟾胚胎神经诱导过程中的基因调控，将采用铯梯度离心法从胚胎外植体中分离RNA。(3)在光和生物钟基因调控的研究中，我们将用铯梯度离心从斑马鱼松果体中分离RNA。我们的研究工作的效率和成功将大大提高，这将使我们能够执行目前仪器状态下不可实现的程序。

This proposal is submitted for funding the purchase of a tabletop ultracentrifuge. This type of centrifuge is particularly useful for the isolation of cellular fractions and purification of nucleic acid samples, where small volumes, high speed and short spin times are required. The instrument will be used in three major projects: (1) Membrane preparation: isolation and reconstitution of bacterial membrane fractions will be performed in the context of the electrophysiological study of Escherichia coli porins and other bacterial ion channels. (2) Isolation of RNA by cesium gradient centrifugation will be performed from embryonic explants in the context of the study of gene regulation during neural induction of Xenopus embryos. (3) RNA will be isolated by cesium gradient centrifugation from zebrafish pineal glands in studies of gene regulation by light and the circadian clock The productivity and success of our research efforts will be greatly enhanced by the acquisition of the proposed instrument, which will allow us to perform procedures that are not feasible with the present state of our instrumentation.