Bullet Blender Blue from Next Advance

March 14, 2013

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University of Minnesota
Dept of Medicine
Post-doctoral Fellow
Bead mill optimization using custom bead lysis kits. The bead mixtures for each kit are as follows. Maroon Lysis Kit: 100ul 0.9mm-2.0mm stainless steel beads, 5 3.2 mm stainless steel beads. Gold Lysis Kit: 50ul 0.5mm Zirconium oxide beads, 50ul 1.0mm Zirconium oxide beads. Fuschia Lysis Kit: 100ul 0.9mm-2.0mm stainless steel beads, 5 3.2mm stainless steel beads. Taupe Lysis Kit: 50ul 0.5mm Zirconium oxide beads, 50 ul 1.0mm Zirconium oxide beads, 25ul 2.0mm Zirconium oxide beads.

Company:

Next Advance

Product Name:

Bullet Blender Blue

Catalog Number:

BBX24B
Image
  • Company: Next Advance
  • Product Name: Bullet Blender Blue
  • Catalog Number: BBX24B

We are investigating differences at the proteomic level between normal and cancerous lung tissue samples. Snap frozen lung tissue must be fully homogenized and lysed in a sterile environment. Traditional mortar and pestle methods were not ideal for the high-throughput scale required for more than 200 samples. The Next Advance Bullet Blender™ Blue bead mill homogenizer offers a sterile, consistent, and efficient way to process 24 samples per run. This model comes with an air-circulator allowing the samples to remain at 4°C when the unit is kept in a cold room. Next Advance sells a variety of beads made of glass, zirconium silicate, zirconium oxide, or stainless steel. Depending on the tissue to be homogenized you can select the appropriate bead yourself or their helpful customer service reps can help you. We have processed lung tissue, mouse femurs, and fat tissue successfully with this device.

Experimental Design and Results Summary

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I experimented with several mixtures of both stainless steel and zirconium oxide beads before choosing a mixture of 50 µL 0.5mm, 50 µL 1.0mm and 25 µL 2.0mm zirconium oxide beads with 100 µg of tissue and 600 µL lysis buffer. I choose this final configuration since it provided a thoroughly homogenized specimen without excessive viscosity. The stainless steel beads appear to deposit some metal dust into the mixture, which is not ideal for mass spectrometry, but may be sufficient for Western blotting or other techniques. Additionally, Trizol reagent will turn black when exposed to the stainless steel beads.

Image Gallery

Bead mill optimization using custom bead lysis kits. The bead mixtures for each kit are as follows. Maroon Lysis Kit: 100ul 0.9mm-2.0mm stainless steel beads, 5 3.2 mm stainless steel beads. Gold Lysis Kit: 50ul 0.5mm Zirconium oxide beads, 50ul 1.0mm Zirconium oxide beads. Fuschia Lysis Kit: 100ul 0.9mm-2.0mm stainless steel beads, 5 3.2mm stainless steel beads. Taupe Lysis Kit: 50ul 0.5mm Zirconium oxide beads, 50 ul 1.0mm Zirconium oxide beads, 25ul 2.0mm Zirconium oxide beads.

Summary

The Good

Sterile, consistent, and efficient way to process 24 tissue samples per run with a high degree of customizable bead lysis kits.

The Bad

The Bullet Blender Blue is not the least expensive option unless you consider your time as having value.

The Bottom Line

The Bullet Blender Blue and Next Advance perfectly satisfy my tissue homogenization needs.

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