Cesium chloride gradient centrifugation is a type of
density gradient centrifugation, a
lab technique used to
separate or
purify nucleic acids (
molecules composed of
nucleotides).
It involves putting cesium chloride (CsCl) and the nucleic acids into a centrifuge to be spun for hours or days. The cesium chloride forms a density gradient (highly dense at the bottom, thinnest at the top), and the different nucleic acids separate along the gradient according to their buoyancies in different densities.
Some or all of the information in this writeup was taken from the science dictionary at http://biotech.icmb.utexas.edu/; I oversaw the development of the dictionary (the website was mothballed in 1998) and believe I wrote the entry this writeup is partly or wholly based upon.