RIA and Chemistry Core Labs

4. RIA and Chemistry Core Labs
These two labs allow for the quantification of various parameters from various tissues, like plasma, tissues, and urine. Techniques include:

• HPLC separation of various angiotensin peptides from plasma and tissue extracts,
• Detection of radioactivity signal from specific antibody-isotope-labelled ligand complexes,
• Assessment of millimolar concentrations of Na+ and K+ in plasma and urine,
• Measurement of millimole/kg concentrations of solutes in plasma and urine samples,
• Quantification of fluorescence signals from ATP assays and Luciferase assays, and
• Calculation of concentrations of unknowns for a given enzyme-linked immunoanalysis assay.

Some of the major pieces of equipment include:

• Waters 600 controller, 2487 Dual X absorbance detector, 2475 Multi X fluorescence detector, and ISCO Foxy fraction collector,
• Packard Multiprobe II EX robotic liquid handling system,
• Wallac Wizard 1470 Automatic Gamma Counter,
• Instrumentation Labs IL 943 Flame Photometer with an automatic sampler,
• Wescor Vapro Vapor Pressure Osmometer,
• Turner Biosystems 20/20n Luminometer, and
• Amersham Biosciences Biotrak II Plate Reader.

FYI: The following is brief description of some major equipment:

A) Thermo Scientific's NanoDrop 2000
Thermo Scientific's NanoDrop 2000 is a UV/Vis spectrometer that allows for the quantification of DNA, RNA, protein and peptide samples. Because it needs only 0.5 ul of sample for measurement, we can save the volume of samples. Concentration measurement capability is from 2 to 15,000 ng/ul (dsDNA), which eliminates the need to dilute samples. The measurement time is less than 5 seconds to each sample.

B) Fisher Scientific's accuSpin Micro17R Microcentrifuge
Fisher Scientific's accuSpin Micro17R Microcentrifuge is a refrigerated microcentrifuge. It can centrifuge 1.5 ml or 2.0 ml tubes up to 24 at a time. The cooling system preserves the sample quality.

C) Waters High Performance Liquid Chromatography System

Allows for the separation and purification of various peptides, such as Val⁵-angiotensin II from IIe⁵-angiotensin II

D) Packard Multi-Probe II EX Robotic Liquid Handling System

Allows for large scale through-put of small volumes with high precision