Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

Here, we present a protocol to isolate the plasma membrane, cytoplasm and mitochondria of U937 cells without the use of high-speed centrifugation. This technique can be used to purify subcellular fractions for subsequent examination of protein localization via immunoblotting.

This fractionation protocol will allow researchers to isolate cytoplasmic, nuclear, mitochondrial, and membrane proteins from mammalian cells. The latter two subcellular fractions are further purified via isopycnic density gradient.