TIGR Tissue Grinder and Dissociator
Benefits
Traditional tissue dissociationConverting tissue into single cells (or small clusters) for downstream assays like single-cell genomics or cell sorting. involves a time-consuming, low-throughput enzymatic digestion and manual cutting of samples. This method often results in low yield with the increased risk of contamination or altering the integrity of the cells. The TIGR Tissue Grinder and Dissociator overcomes these limitations:
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Fast Enzyme-Free Dissociation
Gentle mechanical dissociation is 5-15x faster than enzymatic dissociation. -
Enhanced Integrity and Purity
Integrated workflow in a single consumable reduces risk of contamination. -
Increased Throughput
Benchtop instrument can process four individual samples in parallel.
Rapid and Reliable Single Cell Dissociation
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Established Protocol Database
Preoptimized protocols for over a dozen tissue sample types. -
Experimental Flexibility
All process parameters can be adjusted in the easy-to-use software to optimize dissociation for every application.
Applications
The TIGR Tissue Grinder and Dissociator is the perfect tool for a wide range of applications, including, but not limited to:
- Tumor Tissue Processing
- Isolating Primary Cells
- Cancer Cell Line Development
- 3D Cell Culture Models (Spheroids, Organoids, Tumoroids)
- Single Cell Sequencing
- Flow Cytometry
- Real-time Fluorescence and Deformability Cytometry
How it Works
The TIGR Tissue Grinder and Dissociator system is comprised of the benchtop instrument and a sterile, disposable 50mL grinding tube with an integrated core unit and cell strainer.
The core grinding unit has two parts – the rotor and the stator inserts that interlock with rows of counter-rotating grinding teeth. The stator insert remains static while the rotator insert can rotate clockwise for a shearing process or counterclockwise for a grinding/friction (milling) force. The rotation of the grinding teeth draws the tissue sample into the fin-shaped free space, applying adequate amounts of shearing and milling force to gently extract viable single cells from the tissue.
The workflow is simple and standardized. In a sterile environment, the tissue sample is placed between the rotator and stator with a small volume of suspension buffer. The cell strainer and conical tube are placed over the grinding core, creating a sterile compartment for the dissociation to occur. The grinding tube is then placed in one of the four available slots in the TIGR system in a lid-down orientation so that the rotor connects to the slot’s rotation gear.
The easy-to-use TIGR software executes the grinding protocol parameters set for the experiment and tissue type. By inverting the griding tube with the lid up, the cell suspension flows through the cell strainer to filter the dissociated single cells from remaining tissue without the need for further processing. Centrifugation and resuspension of the cell pellet provides a single cell suspension ready for downstream workflows.