Liquid nitrogen protein extraction - (Nov/07/2015 )

After grinding my sample into powder using liquid nitrogen, is it okay if I transport the powder on ice (journey cost about 30 minutes) before I could place them into -20C/-80C? I am worried that during the transportation period the powder will thaw and cause protein degradation.

If possible, I would transport on dry ice, which should be relatively easy. Are you using protease inhibitors?

phage434 on Sun Nov 8 15:57:29 2015 said:

If possible, I would transport on dry ice, which should be relatively easy. Are you using protease inhibitors?

No, I am purely doing my extraction with buffer only.

I don't know what your next step is, but it is common to add protease inhibitors to the buffer used during grinding, which slows down degradation of proteins that would otherwise be cut by released proteases. Adding them before grinding the cells helps, since you don't have thawed cells without inhibitors present during the thawing.