A continuous tissue homogenizer

Abstract

The present study demonstrates that a continuous homogenizer designed to homogenize 250 or more grams of tissue provides equally or more effective tissue homogenization than a manual homogenizer. To reduce the amount of connective tissue in the homogenate, a preliminary mincing of the tissue was carried out in a stainless steel tissue mincer. The amount of residual unhomogenized material remaining after ten strokes of manual homogenization was approximately equal to that found after one pass in the continuous homogenizer. A second pass in the latter brought the amount of unhomogenized residue to a minimum. After ten strokes of manual homogenization the unbroken cells accounted for 3 per cent of the total, but after one pass in the continuous homogenizer, unbroken cells accounted for only 1 per cent of the total. After two to three passes through the continuous homogenizer, 90 per cent of the nuclei were released from the whole cells but with manual homogenization, only 75 per cent of nuclei were released from the whole cells after ten up-and-down strokes. On the basis of the parameters analyzed, the continuous homogenizer was more effective than manual homogenization.