Yingtai: The Role of The Swing Rotor in The Purification of Biological Macromolecules

Yingtai: The Role of the Swing Rotor in the Purification of Biological Macromolecules

The role of swing rotor in biomolecule purification and its implications

The role of the swing rotor in biomolecule purification experiments is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

Providing centrifugal force field

 The swing rotor generates a centrifugal force field by rotating, and this force field can separate biomolecules of different densities or sizes according to their sedimentation coefficients and buoyant densities. In the purification process, this step is usually a coarse grading separation, i.e., the initial separation of biomolecules of different properties by a graded separation technique.

Facilitating Sample Recovery

 An advantage of the swing rotor is that its basket can accommodate adapters for various tube sizes, allowing a high degree of flexibility without changing rotors. This facilitates sample recovery because the centrifuged sample can be removed directly from the tube, reducing sample loss.

Reduced wall effect

 In centrifuge tubes with a swing rotor, the settling path of biomolecules is longer and there is less wall effect. This means that the contact area between the pellet and the wall of the centrifuge tube is smaller, reducing the likelihood of reduced purification due to adsorption or binding.

Factors Affecting Purification Effectiveness

 Although the swing rotor plays an important role in the purification of biomolecules, there are several factors that may affect the purification results:

Separation efficiency

 Due to the long settling path of the particles in the swing rotor, the separation time is relatively long, which may lead to a decrease in resolution and affect the purification results.

Wall effect

 Although the wall effect is small, if the contact area between the sample and the tube wall is too large, this may still lead to a decrease in purification.

Sample Resuspension

 During deceleration, the swing rotor may generate convection currents, which may result in resuspension of the settled sample and affect the separation.

Centrifugation time

 Centrifugation time plays a significant role in the effectiveness of the separation. Longer centrifugations at lower speeds can give comparable results to shorter centrifugations at higher speeds, but the latter are often more commonly used because they shorten the experimental time.

   Swing rotors play an important role in biomolecule purification, especially in providing centrifugal force and facilitating sample recovery. However, factors such as separation efficiency, wall effect, sample resuspension and centrifugation time may affect the purification results. Therefore, in specific experimental operations, appropriate centrifugation conditions need to be selected according to the experimental purpose and sample characteristics to optimize the purification effect.