FAQ: I want to work with the 50S or 30S ribosomal subunits. Are the 50S and 30S ribosomal subunits available dissociated/separately?

The ribosome is supplied as the intact 70S unit. In order to work with the individual 30S and/or 50S subunits they would have to be dissociated and purified. References describing this can be found in the literature. An example of a typical protocol can be found in the following paper:

Moazed D, Stern S, Noller HF. Rapid chemical probing of conformation in 16 S ribosomal RNA and 30 S ribosomal subunits using primer extension. J Mol Biol. 1986 Feb 5;187(3):399-416. PubMed PMID: 2422386