Dry and Wet Grinding Human Hair Samples with the Bead Ruptor Elite

Hair is a sample matrix studied widely in forensic, racing anti-doping, and clinical research laboratories. Hormone and drug metabolites are easily extracted from hair samples for analysis using GC-MS or LC-MS/MS procedures to gain insights as well as for research exploring historic ingestion or metabolism of drugs and other small molecules of interest. DNA can be extracted from hair both to confirm an individual’s identity as well as to screen for the presence of bacterial, fungal or viral pathogens. 

Hair is a difficult matrix to grind, traditional mortar and pestle methods prove ineffective. To extract compounds from hair, it must be shaken in a solvent for long periods of time, sometimes with the application of heat. Hair can also be chemically digested. Either scenario is inefficient and may degrade analytes of interest. 

The Omni Bead Ruptor Elite™ bead mill homogenizer can be used to grind hair in solution or dry, in less than 10 minutes. After dry or wet grinding, hair samples can be further processed using the Omni Bead Ruptor Elite bead mill homogenizer to increase extraction efficiency. Using the Omni Bead Ruptor Elite bead mill homogenizer, up to 360 hair samples can be processed in 1 hour, with no risk of carryover and no cleaning procedures in between samples.

Figure 2: Hormone metabolite recovery from hair using the Omni Bead Ruptor Elite bead mill homogenizer – Biotage ISOLUTE SLE+ protocol