Ultrasonication during protein purification - degloop the DNA!

Sonicate good times, come on! One benefit of being an early bird is there’s no competition for the ultrasonicator when your start your day at 4am! But, if you come in later, you may have to wait because this piece of lab equipment is a “hot” item (but don’t let it get your sample too hot!) It’s in such high demand because our lab does a lot of protein purification and (once you’ve gotten cells to make your protein of interest) the first step in purifying them is breaking them free from their cellular prisons. The sonicator helps us do this by using ultra-sonic sound waves to make and break bubbles which help lyse (break open) the cells and shear (break into pieces) the cellular DNA so it doesn’t goop up and get in the way. Even though the waves generated by the probe are ultrasonic (have wavelengths higher in frequency than our hearing range can detect), the sounds produced by the bursting bubbles definitely are not.
blog form (originally posted in February, but the video is new): bit.ly/ultraso...