TissueLyser II

We do not sell ceramic beads or glass beads for use with our TissueLyser II or TissueLyser LT instruments. However, we still sell stainless steal beads and tungsten carbide beads. For more information, please go to this link.

Check assembly of the TissueLyser II adapter. It is very important to assemble the TissueLyser adapter correctly. If done incorrectly, the caps of tubes will not remain tight during the disruption and can result in the leak.

The material of the grinding jar as well as the grinding ball is Teflon. The ball has a stainless steel core and a coating of Teflon.

Frequency can be set from 3–30 Hz and is kept constant by a speed controller during operation. It may vary in a range of 0.2–0.4 Hz. If you see larger variations, please make sure not to overload the sample tubes with too much starting material.

If the issue persists, please contact QIAGEN Technical Service to have a repair by QIAGEN’s Regional Repair Center.

100 mg tissue per sample tube is the maximum amount we recommend when using the 2 x 24 Adapter Set. Larger amounts of tissue would require considered optimization, depending on the tissue type and condition.

When using 100 mg tissue, for best homogenization results, we recommend cutting the sample into 2 pieces of approximately 50 mg each prior to disruption and performing disruption twice, each time at 25 Hz for 5 min.

Efficient DNA isolation requires thorough sample disruption and digestion.

Although the QIAamp and DNeasy procedures requires no mechanical disruption of the tissue sample, the lysis time will be reduced if the sample is ground in liquid nitrogen or mechanically homogenized in advance. For mechanical homogenization, a rotor–stator homogenizer, such as the QIAGEN TissueRuptor, or a bead mill, such as the QIAGEN TissueLyser, can be used.

To improve digestion of tough tissue samples, Proteinase K incubation at 56°C can be performed overnight. DNA yields may be improved by increasing the amount of Proteinase K or by adding additional proteinase K after several hours of digestion.  

Buffer ATL can produce foam when used in conjunction with the TissueRuptor. You can add 0.5% final volume of Reagent DX (cat. no. 19088) to prevent the formation of foam.

We do not guarantee the stainless steel beads to be RNase free. However, when used according to our specifications for disruption of biological samples, no special treatment is needed to make the beads RNase free. This is because our chaotropic lysis buffers will usually inactivate these and RNases contained in the samples themselves.

Our stainless steel beads and tungsten carbide beads are ready to use.

We have not specifically tested this application. We suggest using a 7 mm stainless steel bead and disrupting the samples twice at 30 Hz for 2 min each.

Please be advised that these are suggestions only and have not been thoroughly tested by QIAGEN. It is the user’s responsibility to test and further optimize if necessary.

All TissueLyser II repairs must be done by QIAGEN’s Regional Repair Center. Please contact QIAGEN Technical Service.

Yes, the 2 ml Sample Tubes RB (cat. no. 990381) can be used with both TissueLyser II and TissueLyser LT.

When a new TissueLyser II is shipped, it has a transport security device located on the underside of the TissueLyser II. This is comprised of 2 screws as shown below. Remove the 2 screws using a screwdriver. Do not discard the screws, as they will need to be reinstalled if the TissueLyser II needs to be transported in the future. 

Stainless steel beads can be reused for DNA extractions with DNeasy Plant Kits. Used beads can be recovered from cell-debris and cleaned using the procedure below:

1. Close the cap of the 2 ml microtube and briefly vortex to dislodge the bead and pellet from the bottom of the tube. If using grinding jars for the disruption of large sample volumes, skip to step 2.
2. Empty the contents of the tubes/jars into a sieve and rinse the beads thoroughly with water.
3. Incubate beads in 0.4 M HCl for 1 min at room temperature (15–25°C) to degrade any DNA and avoid cross-contamination in future preparations.
4. Rinse beads thoroughly with distilled water to remove the HCl.
5. Dry beads before use.

You can also find these instructions in Appendix B of the DNeasy Plant Handbook.

We do not sell 3 mm stainless steel beads for use with our TissueLyser instruments.

QIAGEN does not carry this part. You can however purchase the O-ring from Retsch. Their part no. is 22.085.0006. Please see http://www.retsch.com/