Sunday, January 26, 2020

Microplates Advise you on the Right Assay and the Best Tools for Analysis

Microplates advise you on how to choose the right assay and the best tools for analysis. Microplates recommend that choosing assay microplates optimised for the reagents you will be using is key for obtaining quality data.

Another important tip from Microplates is that, when it comes to selecting assay plates, you usually have a choice of clear, opaque and transparent. What you must consider before choosing between the different glass-bottom assay plate options is their reflective property.

For instance, ask yourself, do you need opaque assay plate walls to prevent well-to-well cross talk? Microplates consider it is best if you are opting for solid opaque plates if your assay involves scintillation, fluorescence and luminescence.

When it comes to selecting assay plates, you usually have a choice of clear, opaque and transparent. The most important thing to consider before choosing between the different glass-bottom assay plate options is their reflective property. Do you need opaque assay plate walls to prevent well-to-well cross talk?

The Porvair Krystal series clear bottom plates are now recognised as industry-leading tools for Pharma drug discovery and screening. Their standard clear polystyrene bottom plates have bases 0.4mm thick. They are moulded from highly polished tools to reduce flow lines, artefacts and scratches, guaranteeing good results with all types of bottom-reading instruments.

For the more modern demanding confocal readers, Porvair Glass Bottom plates have been shown by leading research institutes to be unsurpassed for flatness, linearity and optical clarity. Our sparkling pure borosilicate glass is 175m thick with a flatness tolerance across the plate of +/- 15m, ensuring superb crisp images every time.

Microplates of course supply a range of assay plates from solid clear and solid bottom to Krystal Clear Bottom Opaque Sides, Krystal UV Transparent, Krystal UV Solid Quartz, Bacti-Growth plates and deep well plates.

The quartz assay plates, particularly the Krystal UV Solid Quartz, is available in black and clear. The Black cell culture plates are high for fluorescence assays. With less opaque surface to reflect the light, clear-bottom assay plates have lower luminescent signal intensity, but they are the go-to 96 well assay plate choice for absorbance assays.

Whereas the clear bottom plates are also useful if you wish to view the cells before the assay; however, we wouldn’t recommend these cell culture microplates if you are using a bottom-reading instrument, as the clear bottom may lead to increased levels of well-to-well cross talk.

So, a piece of advice from Microplates is to avoid this issue when conducting an assay with clear glass bottom assay plates, and we advise researchers to use top reading instruments whose detector can minimise the amount of light which leaks from the well by interfacing more closely with it. If your assay involves UV wavelength measurement (e.g. nucleic acid quantitation), you can also get special UV-transparent microplates.

If you are interested in finding out which is the right assay plate for you, then contact Microplates today for more information by phone on +44 (0)1978 661144 or by email at patricia.deeside@gmail.com. If you are not sure which product is suitable for you, then you can go online to their website at https://www.microplates.com/assay-plates/ and read through the range of assays supplied by Microplates.

Source: https://thenewsfront.com/microplates-advise-you-on-the-right-assay-and-the-best-tools-for-analysis/

About Microplates

Porvair Sciences, specialists in the manufacture of microplate products, serve Life Sciences, Biotechnology, R&D and Molecular Biology with microplate solutions for all applications, from sample preparation to high throughput screening via our global distributor network.

Contact Microplates
Clywedog Road South
Wrexham
LL13 9XS
United Kingdom
+44 (0)1978 661144
Website: https://www.microplates.com/solid-phase-extraction/

Saturday, January 25, 2020

Microplates Porvair Evaporators Remove Solvent Evaporation From Microplates Before Analysis

Microplates Porvair Evaporators can remove solvent evaporation from microplates before analysis or reconstitution in a storage buffer. According to Microplates, these evaporators give significant throughput advantages to laboratories looking to optimise microplate sample preparation productivity.

It is also faster than centrifugal evaporation, significant increases in sample throughput are achieved through advanced evaporator head technology and innovative manifold design, which directly injects heated nitrogen into each well of the microplate simultaneously.

The evaporators have been designed to be simple to install, operate and maintain. Installation requires only connection to a gas supply or cylinder and mains electricity. Safety of operation is ensured as the CE marked compact units fit into all fume cupboards. However, it is not suitable for high boiling solvents such as DMSO and water.

So, the evaporators – The MiniVap and MiniVap Gemini may be operated with a supply of clean, dry compressed air in place of nitrogen, if the chemistry allows. An in-line gas filter must be used in this case.

There are also other evaporation products such as; the Blowdown Evaporator Ultravap Levante and the Blowdown Evaporator Ultravap Mistral.

The Ultravap Levante brings you many of the benefits associated with the flagship evaporator, the Ultravap Mistral, yet in an affordable, automation-ready package.

There is no in/out plate shuttle, but they are still fully programmable and easy to control from a robot liquid handler. It can also be fitted with the ducted fan fume extraction option, similar to the Mistral, and shares most of the software features including full-colour touch screen, stores alphanumerically named programmes (5 programmes), multi-step evaporation programmes (3 steps) and full administrative control (user or admin levels).

Microplates also state that the ‘removable acrylic splash guard protects the user and ensures efficient removal of solvent vapour from the evaporation table, while the solid-state power supply enables the unit to run from either 110v or 220v without an external transformer.’ There is no CAN bus control on the Levante.

The other important evaporator from Microplates is the Blowdown Evaporator Ultravap Mistral. The Ultravap Mistral from Porvair Sciences is designed to remove the traditional laboratory ‘bottleneck’ of solvent evaporation from microplates. Fully automating the dry-down step has always been impossible because it is difficult to interface liquid handling robots with traditional centrifugal type evaporators.

The Ultravap Mistral design, by dispensing with the rotating arm of the centrifuge and offering a fully flat front profile, overcomes this problem and is much better positioned to link with your robot. With more than 20 years’ experience in producing good quality deep microplates, Porvair Sciences has thoroughly researched the problems of drying down organic solvents in plates. This has led to the ultimate microplate blowdown evaporator the Ultravap Mistral.

The Ultravap Mistral can be operated with a supply of clean, dry compressed air in place of nitrogen, that is if the chemistry allows for it. According to Microplates, the new Ultravap Mistral is the latest development of Porvair Sciences’ highly successful Ultravap line of blowdown evaporators and sample concentrators.

Get in touch with Microplates today if you are interested in a nitrogen evaporator, nitrogen evaporation or you would like to know more about evaporating solvents using nitrogen itself. You can email the team at Microplates at patricia.deeside@gmail.com, or you can go online to their website and their page about evaporators and read more at https://www.microplates.com/evaporators/.

Source: https://thenewsfront.com/microplates-porvair-evaporators-remove-solvent-evaporation-from-microplates-before-analysis

About Microplates

Porvair Sciences, specialists in the manufacture of microplate products, serve Life Sciences, Biotechnology, R&D and Molecular Biology with microplate solutions for all applications, from sample preparation to high throughput screening via our global distributor network.

Contact Microplates
Clywedog Road South
Wrexham
LL13 9XS
United Kingdom
+44 (0)1978 661144
Website: https://www.microplates.com/solid-phase-extraction