Improving Sample Preparation for Multiple Sclerosis Research

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the most common neurologic disorders in the world with more than 2.3 million people affected (WHO 2013). It is described as a chronic & unpredictable disease of the central nervous system (CNS). It is an immune-mediated disorder, in which the immune system incorrectly attacks healthy tissue in the CNS.

The early diagnosis of MS disorder represents a challenge for the scientific community as the symptoms may be non-specific and suggestive of several nervous system’s disorders. Early symptoms that come and go may be ignored.

Knowing the heterogeneity of tissue (brain, spinal cord and optic nerves) which compose the CNS, flexibles tools are needed to achieve research and discovery on all the mechanisms implicated into MS.

The Precellys^® bead beating homogenizer helps researchers increase the throughput of their sample preparation. Thanks to its flexibility in terms of volume (from 96 well plate format to 15 ml) the Precellys^® is used in research allowing the homogenization of a complete organ (whole rat brain) or smaller samples (spinal cord) to get optimal results. The unique efficiency and reproducibility greatly improves the crucial step of sample preparation to obtain consistent DNA/RNA or protein.