LCP Tools >> Syringe Lipid Mixer
Syringe Lipid Mixer
The mixer consists of a two 100 μL (Hamilton Company, cat# 7656-01)
or two 250 μL (Hamilton Company, cat# 7657-01) gas-tight syringes and a syringe coupler made of two removable needle (RN) nuts (Hamilton, cat# 30902)
and two gauge 22 removable needles (Hamilton, cat# 7770-02) (Fig. 1) (Cheng et al., 1998).
Alternatively, a slightly different syringe coupler can be purchased from Emerald Biosystems (cat# EB-LCP-SUNION), or from Molecular Dimensions (cat# MD6-17).
The lipid mixer allows for fast and efficient mixing of small volumes of lipids and aqueous solutions
(total volume of 10 – 100 μL with 100 μL syringes, and 25 – 250 μL with 250 μL syringes) (Fig. 2)
for lipid phase studies (Cherezov et al., 2001; Cherezov et al., 2002) or LCP crystallization trials
(Cherezov & Caffrey, 2003; Cherezov et al., 2004; Caffrey & Cherezov, 2009).
REFERENCES:
Caffrey, M., and V. Cherezov. (2009) Crystallizing membrane proteins using lipidic mesophases. Nat. Protoc. 4: 706-731. >>
Cheng, A., Hummel, B., Qiu, H., and M. Caffrey. (1998) A simple mechanical mixer for small viscous lipid-containing samples. Chem. Phys. Lipids 95: 11-21. >>
Cherezov, V., Fersi, H., and M. Caffrey. (2001) Crystallization screens: compatibility with the lipidic cubic phase for in meso crystallization of membrane proteins. Biophys. J. 81: 225-242. >>
Cherezov, V., Clogston, J., Misquitta, Y., Abdel-Gawad, W., and M. Caffrey. (2002) Membrane protein crystallization in meso: lipid type-tailoring of the cubic phase. Biophys. J. 83: 3393-3407. >>
Cherezov, V., and M. Caffrey. (2003) Nano-volume plates with excellent optical properties for fast, inexpensive crystallization screening of membrane proteins. J. Appl. Cryst. 36: 1372-1377. >>
Cherezov, V., Peddi, A., Muthusubramaniam, L., Zheng, Y.F., and M. Caffrey. (2004) A robotic system for crystallizing membrane and soluble proteins in lipidic mesophases. Acta Crystallogr. D Biol. Crystallogr. 60: 1795-1807. >>