Accessories

Sidekick Station | 384-Well Tilted-Bottom Microplate | Biosensor Mount Cleaning Trays

Sidekick^™ Offline Biosensor Immobilization Station

Sidekick Biosensor Immobilization Station

The Sidekick station enables simultaneous and uniform reagent loading onto all 96 biosensors in a biosensor tray. Target analyte and other reagents that do not require online signal monitoring can be loaded onto biosensors on the Sidekick, freeing the Octet^® instrument for other users. This accessory to ForteBio's Octet family of instruments can be installed beside an Octet system and used in collaboration with it, or can be used independently.

Key Features

• Offline loading of reagents on biosensors
• Simultaneous loading on up to 96 biosensors
• Automation compatibility
• Small and portable
• Ideal for creating large batches of custom biosensors
• Decreases incubation times; increases assay precision and sensitivity

When preparing custom biosensors, shaking the biosensors with the samples on the Sidekick station halves the required incubation time, thereby doubling the biosensor preparation productivity. Figure 1 shows the rate of binding of biotinylated protein to Streptavidin biosensors increases with shaking. Further efficiency can be obtained by using the Sidekick station in conjunction with a liquid-handling robotic workstation to automate the custom biosensor preparation. The Sidekick station enables robust, multi-step Octet sandwich assays by decreasing incubation times during sample capture and simultaneously increasing assay precision due to its unique shaking routine.

Figure 1: The rate of binding of biotinylated protein to Streptavidin biosensors increases with shaking.

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384-Well Tilted-Bottom Microplate (384TW)

For Low Volume, High Sensitivity Assays

The 384TW microplate is a black, polypropylene, 384-well tilted-bottom plate designed for the Octet^® family of instruments. It can be used on the Octet RED384, Octet QK384 and Octet HTX instruments accommodate the 384-microwell plate format. The 384TW microplate enables use of samples as small as 40 µL in Octet assays and reduces background signal variability, thus improving assay sensitivity — a particularly beneficial feature for peptide, small molecule and fragment analysis.

Figure 1 and Table 1 show results from a Protein A biosensor-based quantitation assay to detect human IgG (hIgG) in solution. The assay was run on an Octet RED384 system using the standard Basic Quantitation settings with Regeneration module, available in the Octet Data Acquisition software. A comparison of the data obtained in a 96-well flat-bottom microplate using 200 µL of sample to that obtained in a 384TW microplate using only 40 µL of sample shows that assay performance is equivalent in both microplates.

Figure 1: Calibration curve across the dynamic range of 0.5–2000 µg/mL hIgG; results from 384TW microplates compares very well to those from standard flat-bottom 96-well microplates.

Test Concentrations Measured Avg. Concentrations (µg/mL) Percent CV 96-well 384TW 96-well 384TW 2000 2000.00 1999.98 12% 7% 1500 1508.78 1503.58 7% 3% 1000 1015.90 1007.08 7% 4% 700 700.20 700.70 2% 3% 500 503.03 502.53 3% 4% 300 300.50 300.88 2% 3% 30 30.10 20.05 3% 3% 10 10.01 10.00 3% 3% 3 3.00 3.00 3% 3% 1 1.00 1.00 1% 6% 0.5 0.50 0.51 4% 9%

Table 1: Measured concentrations and CVs show good dynamic range, recovery and precision in the 384TW microplate vs. a standard 96-well microplate.

In high-sensitivity screening and kinetic applications, the limit of detection is often defined as 3 times the standard deviation of the baseline signal. The 384TW microplate decreases system artifacts decreasing the variation (and thus the standard deviation) of the baseline signal, allowing smaller signals to be resolved from baseline noise.

The following table contains data obtained on an Octet RED384 system using Super Streptavidin (SSA) biosensors. It includes the average signal and standard deviation of the baseline of these biosensors.  The averages and standard deviations for each data point are calculated from 1920 replicates. The lower limit of detection shown is defined as 3 times the standard deviation over the average baseline. For many screening campaigns, this value defines the smallest signal contribution by a positive binding sample. In this experiment the 384TW microplate was found to be advantageous, having a 2-fold lower limit of detection than a standard 384-well flat-bottom plate.

To learn more about the 384TW microplate, download the . To request a quote, please visit our Ordering page.

Biosensor Mount Cleaning Trays

Biosensor Mount Cleaning Tray

Biosensor Mount Cleaning Trays allow automated cleaning of the internal biosensor mounts on the Octet HTX, RED384, and QK384 instruments. Over time, plastic sensor residue can accumulate in the Octet system which can potentially cause biosensor pick up and alignment issues during assays. Regular use of the Cleaning Trays is highly recommended as an easy way to prevent any issues between maintenance visits.

• Single-use Cleaning Trays are sold in packs of 12 and work in conjunction with a software wizard available in the latest release of Octet Data Acquisition software versions 9.0 and 10.0.
• The cleaning procedure is completely automated, easy to perform, and only takes about 8 minutes
• Cleaning at least once a month is recommended for moderately used instruments
• The cleaning procedure is intended as a preventative measure and does not replace regularly scheduled maintenance. If you suspect your biosensor mounts have excessive accumulated plastic sensor residue, please schedule a preventative maintenance first before cleaning.