Curious if anyone here has implemented high‑throughput glucose monitoring in a 96‑well plate format as part of a fully integrated automation workcell (e.g., Hamilton, HighRes, Lynx, etc.).
My use case is running fed‑batch assays in 96‑well format, with daily glucose measurements used to drive feeding decisions (closed‑loop).
Specifically interested in two approaches:
Instrument-based
Integration with analyzers (e.g., NOVA/Cedex)
Fully integrated sampling and glucose measurement within the workflow
For a plate-based high-throughput screening format, one of the challenges for at-line monitoring is the limited sample volume available.
In our high-throughput fermentation setups integrated with a Hamilton STAR, we performed fermentations with a starting volume of 12 mL, so sampling volume was less of an issue.
What worked well for us was using an enzymatic kit for glucose measurements - we used the R-Biopharm Liquid D-Glucose Kit.
For at-line enzymatic and colorimetric measurements, we collected the cell suspension in a 96-well filter plate and separated the cell-free filtrate into a microplate via centrifugation. This becomes a bit more tricky if you have higher cell densities and lower sample volumes available.
The filtrate was then used as the input for the assay. One issue we ran into was that the filtrate had varying physical properties depending on the glucose concentration, so be aware that you may need to adjust the liquid classes to ensure the measurements are not skewed by differences between high and low glucose concentrations affecting pipetting. If you are screening within a limited concentration range, this should not be a major issue.
Of course, you can also collect the filtrate and process it further using other methods, such as the analyzers you mentioned or HPLC.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and insights with me. I’ll check the kit out and see if we can plan an experiment to test it out. I’ll let you know if I have any questions.