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01/22/2010
Micro Free Flow Electrophoresis Analysis of Mitochondria
Recent research from the research groups of Professor Edgar Arriaga and Professor Michael Bowser.
Much like cells, mitochondria exhibit a wide
range of diversity in size, shape, protein expression and ultimately functionality.
Understanding this diversity has important implications in aging and metabolism
research. Vratislav Kostal and Bryan Fonslow from the Arriaga and Bowser
groups have recently collaborated to develop a new Micro Free Flow Electrophoresis
(μFFE) method for analyzing mitochondrial
populations. μFFE continuously separates
analyte streams as they flow through an electric field. This continuous separation
allows analysis of microliter scale samples in as little as 30 sec. This
technique is also well suited for microscale preparative separations which
would allow further analysis of mitochondria sub-populations. Full details
can be found in: Anal. Chem., 2009, 81 (22),
pp 9267–9273; DOI: 10.1021/ac901508x.
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| Left: Schematic of the μFFE device. Right: Fluorescence
image showing dispersion of mitochondria in the electric field.
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