`  

 

 

Week Two – Blood Fractionation

The great tragedy of Science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
Thomas H. Huxley (1825 - 1895)

Presentation

The Monday talk will present the rationale behind the first laboratory project of the course. The talk is available on line and slides with notes are available as a pdf file, formatted for grayscale printing. If necesssary please peruse the presentation well in advance of your lab day so that you have time to ask questions and resolve any misunderstandings. You must be prepared for the laboratory work, including understanding is purpose.

Resources

  • Peruse the presentation titled "Characterizing Erythrocyte Membrane Proteins by SDS-PAGE – Part 1"
  • Go through the section "Blood Fractionation" in the laboratory guides, including the overview and part 1 of the study
  • Consult any introductory biology text, for information on blood as a tissue
  • Pre-lab #2 presents review questions, guides you through the calculations needed for the second week of laboratory work, and tests your understanding of the sequence of procedures; it must be submitted before you come to the laboratory

Some expectations before starting the work

  • As always, prepare an outline of the planned work
  • Prepare to apply any or all of the skills and concepts covered in the "Laboratory math" study
  • Be able to describe the overall objectives and specific objectives of this week's work
  • Be able to descibe the full rationale behind red cell fractionation
  • Be able to describe how each fraction relates to the structure of blood and red blood cells
  • Be able to describe principles of differential centrifugation
  • Be able to identify and describe the protein assay that we will use

Pre-laboratory orientation (by instructor)

  • "Walk through" the fractionation procedures, including safe use of centrifuge equipment
  • Introduction to using a re-pipet (to deliver color reagent)
  • Suggestions for division of labor and record keeping

Follow-up work

  • Place your sample tubes in the ice bucket designated for aliquots to be frozen for the following week
  • Turn in initialed notebook pages as you are expected to do each week
  • Finish determining protein concentrations for your samples if you ran out of time during the laboratory session
  • Start on your preparation for the third week of the course (Week 3 schedule page)
Copyright and Intended Use
Visitors: to ensure that your message is not mistaken for SPAM, please include the acronym "Bios211" in the subject line of e-mail communications
Created by David R. Caprette (caprette@rice.edu), Rice University17 Aug 95
Updated 14 Jan 08