General Description
Mitochondria, sometimes described as the “power plants” of the cell, are sites where most of the energy production in eukaryotic cells takes place. The synthesis of most of the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) occurs in these double membraned organelles that are found in living cells. ATP production by the mitochondria is done by the process of respiration, which uses oxygen to generate energy. This is a very efficient process for using food energy to make ATP. In addition to supplying cellular energy, mitochondria are involved in a range of other processes, such as signaling, cellular differentiation, cell death, as well as the control of the cell cycle and cell growth. Mitochondria also regulate crucial apoptosis signaling pathways. The number of mitochondria in a cell varies widely by organism and tissue type. Many cells have only a few mitochondria, whereas others can contain several thousand.
Millipore’s Mitochondria/Cytosol Fractionation Kit provides reagents for quick and efficient isolation of intact mitochondria from cultured cells. This kit allows mitochondrial isolation by using a convenient table top microcentrifuge, and can be used to separate an enriched mitochondrial fraction (heavy membrane fraction) from cytosolic fraction (light membrane fraction). Such separation is useful for studying apoptosis and signaling pathways between the two fractions, by Western blotting or ELISA.
The kit contains sufficient materials for the analysis of 50 samples.
