An integrated, easy-to-use, and cost-effective technology platform for the rapid handling and growth of large numbers of microbial strains, clonal libraries, mutant banks, and cell lines in 24 or 96-well microtiter plates.
The system enables a single person to grow and test thousands of strains simultaneously with a minimum of repetitive handlings: all handling is performed in parallel for sets of 24 or 96 strains.
Numerous users have reported time-savings of more than a factor 10.
Same quality of growth as in Erlenmeyer flasks in terms of oxygen transfer rates and reproducibility: See it for yourself; view the technical data, photos and movies showing the hydrodynamics inside the wells during orbital shaking.
Sandwich covers are now available for:
- 24 square deepwell plates (2.5 - 4 ml cultures)
- 96 square deepwell plates (0.5 - 1 ml cultures)
- 24 round lowwell plates (0.75-1.5 ml cultures)
- 96 round lowwell plates (0.1 - 0.2 ml cultures)
The system was originally developped and validated at the Institute of Biotechnology of the ETH Zurich: read the key publication in Applied and Environmental Microbiology (Duetz et al. 2000, pdf-file [146 kb]).
Discovery: high-throughput screening for new enzyme activities or formation of secondary metabolites (heterogeneous culture collections)
Screening and distribution of clone libraries in E. coli or yeasts
High-throughput screening for high-activity or high-productivity mutants
Comparative studies e.g. clinical isolates
Growth medium optimization studies
The system has been extensively tested and validated for a range of bacterial strains and streptomycetes (see literature for details). For use for yeasts and fungi, please contact us.
Main components:
Sandwich covers convert all wells of microtiter plates into individual "mini-reactors" suitable for high-frequency orbital shaking, at high oxygen transfer rates, and without well-to-well variations.
Cover clamps ensure that the deepwell plate and its sandwich cover are clamped together tightly, thereby preventing well-to-well contamination
The cryo-replicator*: a precision spring-loaded device for the simultaneous and reproducible sampling of 96 frozen glycerol stocks. With the CRYO-REPLICATOR culture stocks remain viable for years because they can remain frozen.
The cryo-replicator press is a guiding system ensuring accuracy during the replication of sets of strains
* EP1192438
General procedure used to generate living suspended cultures, starting from a master-plate with 96 individual strains stored at - 80 ºC in the presence of 15% (v/v) glycerol
