The RNA Institute, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, New York, United States of America.
Department of Chemistry, University at Albany, State University of New York, New York, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2018 Apr 16;13(4):e0195907. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0195907. eCollection 2018.
The centrifuge is among the oldest and most widely used pieces of laboratory equipment, with significant applications that include clinical diagnostics and biomedical research. A major limitation of laboratory centrifuges is their "black box" nature, limiting sample observation to before and after centrifugation. Thus, optimized protocols require significant trial and error, while unoptimized protocols waste time by centrifuging longer than necessary or material due to incomplete sedimentation. Here, we developed an instrumented centrifuge tube receptacle compatible with several commercial benchtop centrifuges that can provide real-time sample analysis during centrifugation. We demonstrated the system by monitoring cell separations during centrifugation for different spin speeds, concentrations, buffers, cell types, and temperatures. We show that the collected data are valuable for analytical purposes (e.g. quality control), or as feedback to the user or the instrument. For the latter, we verified an adaptation where complete sedimentation turned off the centrifuge and notified the user by a text message. Our system adds new functionality to existing laboratory centrifuges, saving users time and providing useful feedback. This add-on potentially enables new analytical applications for an instrument that has remained largely unchanged for decades.
离心机是最古老和最广泛使用的实验室设备之一，具有重要的应用，包括临床诊断和生物医学研究。实验室离心机的一个主要限制是其“黑箱”性质，这限制了对样品的观察仅限于离心前后。因此，优化的方案需要大量的反复试验，而未优化的方案则由于沉降不完全而导致不必要的离心时间或材料浪费。在这里，我们开发了一种与几种商业台式离心机兼容的仪器化离心管容器，可在离心过程中提供实时样品分析。我们通过监测不同转速、浓度、缓冲液、细胞类型和温度下的细胞分离来演示该系统。我们表明，收集的数据对于分析目的（例如质量控制）或作为对用户或仪器的反馈很有价值。对于后者，我们验证了一种自适应功能，即完全沉降会关闭离心机，并通过短信通知用户。我们的系统为现有的实验室离心机增加了新的功能，为用户节省了时间并提供了有用的反馈。这种附加组件为几十年来基本保持不变的仪器开辟了新的分析应用。
