PISTON FRACTIONATION

PISTON FRACTIONATION

Using the topdown method to piston fractionation we are able to leave the gradient undisturbed while a piston - computer driven by a stepper motor attached to an acme screw - descends from the top, displacing layers through the centre of its patented trumpet-shaped tip, keeping the flow smooth and extremely precise. With our patented technology you are able to fractionate based on distance rather than drop or time, clearly see band visibility and recording to determine usefulness and have full digital control on the fractionation process.

The era of High Resolution Gradient Analysis has finally arrived. Introducing BioComp’s incomparable Piston Gradient Fractionator™, the world’s highest resolution fractionator.

Developed by a scientist who routinely does 6-30 gradient experiments, this device has more performance-enhancing features than all competing designs combined. You can recover slices from the gradient as small as 10 microns thick (300 micron fractions are more typical), visualize bands of particles as small as ribosomes with the naked eye, fractionate manually to recover visible bands or automatically to produce perfect gradient profiles, and rinse and blow dry your sample tubing after each fraction, eliminating cross-contamination between fractions. 

The most important technical advance is our patented “Trumpet Tip”™, an inverted tapered piston cone that gradually compresses bands of particles from horizontal discs into thin vertical columns. This advance greatly reduces the resolution-killing laminar capillary flow that tends to pull sample from a teardrop shaped area directly in front of the needle or cone used by our competitors. 

Another significant improvement is the readout of distance (0.00 mm) from the meniscus down, so you know exactly where you are sampling in the tube. 

The results are nothing short of spectacular. In a recent paper, Jardine & Coombs (1998) resolved 4 distinct peaks of phage T4 capsids between 300S - 350S where previous reports fractionated by needle puncture had shown only one broad peak. One of the new particles was a new intermediate in head assembly that demonstrated that capsid expansion followed the beginning of DNA packaging. 

The combination of the Gradient Master and the Piston Gradient Fractionator offer a quantum leap in reproducibility and resolution. Call today for details.