Labcyte Deerac™ and Echo® liquid handling systems deliver better scientific data, cost savings and reduced waste for applications throughout the drug discovery process, including compound management, biochemical and cell-based screening, siRNA screening and assay development.
Cost Savings in Compound Management and Screening
With 2.5 nL transfer volumes, Echo liquid handling systems enable miniaturization of compound storage libraries and screening assays into 384-, 1536- and even 3456-well plates. ADE transfer is tipless and touchless, saving Echo users significant costs in tips, plates, wash solutions and waste disposal.
Case Study - Echo Liquid Handlers Enable 3456-Well Assays
Merck Frosst Centre for Therapeutic Research (Quebec, Canada) uses the Echo 550 liquid handler to transfer their 384-well compound library storage plates into 3456-well assay plates. This miniaturization led to a tremendous savings in reagent and compound usage, as well as in reduced plate handling requirements.
More Accurate Primary Screening
Echo liquid handling systems simplify and optimize plate preparation for a wide range of compound and siRNA screening assays. Our unique Echo Dose-Response application software eliminates serial dilutions, creating precise multi-log dose-response curves in just three steps. Tipless transfer ensures that sticky compounds are not lost on tips and plates, yielding more accurate results so that you don’t miss your best hits!
Figure 2. Two-fold 16-point titration curves of compounds H89 and H9 assembled from the LOPAC collection (Sigma-Aldrich) using an Echo 555 liquid handler. Kinase assay IC50 values were comparable to previously published data.
Case Study – Echo Liquid Handlers Deliver Fewer False Negatives
Bristol-Myers Squibb demonstrated fewer false negatives in IC50 assays prepared using the Echo 550 liquid handler versus traditional aqueous serial dilutions. The results revealed 110 compounds that showed significant activity when diluted using ADE, but would have been eliminated as ineffective when diluted using traditional serial dilution. Closer examination revealed that the false negatives are often due to the loss of hydrophobic compounds adhering to pipette tips and dilution vessels. Without their Echo liquid handler, BMS might have missed their best leads.
Figure 3. Compounds in the lower left quadrant have low IC50 values using both dilution methods and are considered active. Compounds in the upper right quadrant have high IC50 values using both methods and are considered inactive. 10% of the compounds tested (lower right quadrant) were mistakenly identified as biologically inactive using traditional serial dilution, but ADE transfer revealed potentially strong leads. The circled compounds had IC50 values that were 10- to 100-fold lower when transferred using ADE than when transferred with pipette tips and serial dilution.
Case Study – Deerac HTS Enables Miniaturized Enzyme Inhibition Assays
The Deerac™ HTS system enables miniaturization for a wide range of biochemical assays. Using the Kinase-Glo® (Promega) enzyme inhibition assays, we reduced the assay volumes by 25–fold, yielding with a total assay volume of 2 µL with excellent Z’ factors and %CV’s.
Figure 4. Compound screen using Plate 6 of LOPAC® (Sigma-RBI) performed in LV384 (panel A) and 1536 (panel B) well formats.
Case Study – Deerac HTS Enables Miniaturized Kinase Assay Development in 1536-Well Plate Format
DiscoveRx relied upon the precision dispensing of the Deerac HTS to develop and miniaturize their ADP Hunter™ HS assay for kinase screening in 1536-well plates. This miniaturization enabled them to greatly increase assay throughput.
Figure 5. EC
50 curves of PKA in 1, 2 and 4
mL reaction in 1536-well plates (left), and normalized (right).