Uploaded February 2020 | Updated September 2026, 5 days ago
In last week’s video, we showed you, how one can fish protein crystals from a 96-well screening plate. 🎣💎 But how is such a plate prepared? Do we need to pipette 96 tiny droplets by ourselves? No!🙅♀
Each well on such a 96-well screening plate has three tiny basins next to one larger basin. The larger basin is used for a buffer solution while the three smaller basins leave space for droplets of three different protein solutions.💦 like this, three proteins can be screened with 96 different buffer mixtures. The ingredients of the buffer can cause crystals to grow from highly concentrated protein solutions in the droplets.
To pipette both buffer and the small droplets into the basins, we use a pipetting robot called Gryphon.🤖 The robot can be programmed to follow a specific set of commands. We program it to wash its 96 metal pipetting tips and the needle. Afterwards, it pipettes a certain amount of buffer solution into the larger basin, followed by “splashing” nanolitre volume droplets into the tiny basins.💦After 15 minutes the plate is ready, subsequently sealed with a plastic cover and incubated at various temperatures in a special incubator. To monitor the crystal growth, a camera in the incubator takes pictures of the droplets at certain time intervals. Within a few days or weeks, we usually know if we have any crystals. through this automated system, you can even watch the crystals grow in size over time. 🔎💎
Have a happy Thursday😀#NCCR #NCCRmse #Science #Lab #crystals #robot #Xray
In last week’s video, we showed you, how one can fish protein crystals from a 96-well screening plate. 🎣💎 But how is such a plate prepared? Do we need to pipette 96 tiny droplets by ourselves? No!🙅♀
Each well on such a 96-well screening plate has three tiny basins next to one larger basin. The larger basin is used for a buffer solution while the three smaller basins leave space for droplets of three different protein solutions.💦 like this, three proteins can be screened with 96 different buffer mixtures. The ingredients of the buffer can cause crystals to grow from highly concentrated protein solutions in the droplets.
To pipette both buffer and the small droplets into the basins, we use a pipetting robot called Gryphon.🤖 The robot can be programmed to follow a specific set of commands. We program it to wash its 96 metal pipetting tips and the needle. Afterwards, it pipettes a certain amount of buffer solution into the larger basin, followed by “splashing” nanolitre volume droplets into the tiny basins.💦After 15 minutes the plate is ready, subsequently sealed with a plastic cover and incubated at various temperatures in a special incubator. To monitor the crystal growth, a camera in the incubator takes pictures of the droplets at certain time intervals. Within a few days or weeks, we usually know if we have any crystals. through this automated system, you can even watch the crystals grow in size over time. 🔎💎
Have a happy Thursday😀#NCCR #NCCRmse #Science #Lab #crystals #robot #Xray
