Application note: The reliability of assay-ready plates for cell-based screening enabled by the Echo® 550 Liquid handler

In this application note, Sheraz Gul (Fraunhofer-IME SP), Markus Wolf (Fraunhofer-IME SP), Enda O’Connell (National University of Ireland Galway) and Howard Fearnhead (National University of Ireland Galway), demonstrate that the Echo 550 Liquid Handler can precisely and accurately transfer nanolitre volumes of compound with acoustic energy in a completely contact-free manner…

In a collaboration between the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (Hamburg, Germany), and the National University of Ireland (NUI) Galway (Galway, Ireland), assay-ready plates were prepared for the ENZO SCREEN-WELL FDA v. 2.0 Approved Drug Library and shipped to the NUI Galway for screening against celllines. We demonstrate that the Echo 550 Liquid Handler can precisely and accurately transfer nanolitre volumes of compound with acoustic energy in a completely contact-free manner to prepare assayready plates for shipment to partner sites in different countries – in this case, NUI Galway. We present results of the screening of this compound library against the HEK293 cell-line. The Echo 550 Liquid Handler was used to transfer 20nL of each compound per well into 384 multiwell plates and these were shipped to NUI Galway for screening. This method reduced the amount of drug, numbers of cells, amount of cell culture and assay reagents and consequently the cost of screening was significantly reduced.