Washers for qPCR plates

Integrated Devices (Centrifuge, Washer, etc)
1

Hi all,

I am looking at washers for qPCR plates, not just ELISA plates. Interested in options for both integrated and standalone systems.

Considering the BlueWasher and C.Wash. Does anyone have any other recommendations?

Thanks,
DAC

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2

Washing with the intention to re-use the plates ? Else Grenova is an option ( https://grenova.com/)

3

Hi Dimitri,

thanks for the feedback. This is for washing the plates mid-workflow. We don’t reuse them.

It is similar to an ELISA wash but using qPCR plates. We will be testing some BioTek washer, placing the qPCR plates on top of an ELISA plate as a holder. But if there is any more suitable device, that would be great to know.

4

What does your workflow look like? Using a semi-skirted PCR plate it sounds like?

Are you capturing on/binding to the plate directly? Beads? Something else?

Either the CWash or Bluewash would work similarly to the Biotek, requiring an adapter or dummy plate underneath. Make sure that the plate stack is tall enough to fit in the instruments you’re looking at. Maybe they sell adapters now but the last time I’ve went through a quote process they didn’t have anything so you might just be stuck with a holder plate.

One benefit of the centrifugal wash is that it does really evacuate everything which can minimize background for some assays. Worth demoing 100%. One drawback is that it can lead to sample loss wrt bead based assays if you spin them too hard. Need to optimize the centrifugal evacuation steps against the strength of the magnet holding the beads in place.

Blue wash comes in an xl version which is pretty handy for larger plates, not sure if any of the more recent CWash configurations allow for tall plates, but definitely worth asking about.

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5

Thanks @mnweson for your feedback.
Yes, semi-skirted plate. We are capturing on the plate.

For now we are trying the BioTek, because the main priority is to minimize cross-contamination chances as much as possible.
We have a BlueWash and our experience is that there can be a bit of cross-contamination. So we have decided to try the BW only if the BioTek absolutely does not perform as we want.

6

I’ve been curious about Biotek washers in qPCR/PCR cleanup workflows, do you ever see cross contamination due to aspirating pins carryover between wells/plates (likely due to ineffective washing of pins post aspirating)?

7

I’ll report back when we get results. We are now awaiting for a demo unit to start testing.