N° 20

FORUM
TECHNICAL NOTES & APPLICATIONS FOR LABORATORY WORKCONTENT
1. Cycloolefin
Microplates

1536 WELL CYCLOOLEFINMICROPLATE FOR COMPOUND
STORAGE AND ACOUSTICLIQUID HANDLING
1/ CYCLOOLEFIN MICROPLATES
Cycloolefin microplates have become increasingly popular in research andhigh-throughput screening due to their excellent optical, chemical, and physicalproperties. Cycloolefins feature low water absorption and low impurities.
Their high transparency and exceptional chemical resistance to polar solvents,
especially DMSO, the commonly used solvent in compound management,
render cycloolefin microplates ideal for drug discovery.
Greiner Bio-One's 1536 well cycloolefin microplate with low dead volume follows
the most relevant ANSI recommendations and features a smooth microplate
top absent of alphanumeric coding to facilitate flush lid mounting and heatsealing. The wells are more tapered than in classic 1536 well microplates,
reducing the dead volume in different liquid handling systems. The 1536 well
microplate is suitable for acoustic liquid handling systems, pin tool liquidhandling systems and optical density measurements in biochemical assays.

2. Acoustic Liquid
Handling in Drug
Discovery
3. Features of the1536 Well Compound
Storage Microplatefor Acoustic Liquid
Handling
4. Ordering Information

FORUM

N° 20

2/ ACOUSTIC LIQUID HANDLING IN
DRUG DISCOVERYThe quality of the chemical entities in a compound
library and the size of a compound library are certainly
key success factors in drug discovery. However, large
compound libraries need clever compound management,high tech software and instrumentation in order to supply
high quality active agents for the different screening
units in a drug discovery team.
Active agents are commonly dissolved in 100 % DMSO
for use in the screening process, and plastic disposabletips or metal pins are generally used for liquid transferof DMSO solved compounds.
In recent years, acoustic-based liquid handling systems
have become of interest, as they allow a direct transferof picoliter range sample droplets of highly concentrated compounds from storage to assay microplates.
The compounds are directly transferred from thecompound storage microplate into the final assay
plate without intermediate dilution steps, simply byacoustic energy transfer (Fig. 1).

CLASSIC

12This assay ready plate concept (Fig. 2) enables direct
preparation of assay plates and, for several screening
groups, circumvents preliminary dilution steps to allow
the centralisation of compound management.

Assay Plate
Compound Droplets

Source Plate with
Compound Solution

Coupling Fluid
Acoustic Transducer

Figure 1: Acoustic droplet ejection (ADE)
uses ultrasound to transfer low volumes of fluids without
physical contact. Unlike other liquid handling approaches,
this process does not require pipette tips or pin tools for thecompound transfer.

CENTRAL COMPOUND MANAGEMENTASSAY READY

TRANSFER

TRANSFER

Mother plate

Mother plate

TRANSFER OF DILUTIONSASSAY READY PLATESDaughter plates

No daughter plates required,
Faciliates centralised
compound management

3

DISTRIBUTION TO SCREENING SITES

12Assay Plates

4

HIGHT THROUGHPUT SCREENING

Figure 2: The assay ready plate concept
Diagram showing the assay ready plate compound management versus the classical compound management which is basedon intermediate compound dilutions. The assay ready plate concept allows the centralisation of compound managements
and circumvents dilution steps.

2/4

www.gbo.com

N° 203/ FEATURES OF THE 1536 WELLCOMPOUND STORAGE MICROPLATE
FOR ACOUSTIC LIQUID HANDLINGThe compound management microplate is manufacturedof cycloolefin copolymer (COC) (Fig. 3) that demonstrates excellent acoustic liquid handling properties
comparable to existing low dead volume cycloolefin
compound storage microplates (Fig. 4).
Due to an exceptionally precise design and manufacture,
the microplate is suitable for use with existing plate
definition files of low dead volume source plates inexisting acoustic liquid handling systems.

The low dead volume 1536 well compound storage
microplate for acoustic liquid handling features asmooth microplate top absent of alphanumeric coding
to facilitate flush lid mounting and heat sealing.
Due to its generic design and material selection, existing
settings for 1536 well cycloolefin copolymer microplates
can be used for heat sealing.

OPTICAL DENSITY [OD]
0.9
0.8
0.7

The generic design of the microplate fulfills major ANSI
requirements and can be used within most automated
HTS systems without time-consuming or complicatedadaptations (Fig. 5).
The wells of the 1536 well storage and source plate
are more tapered than those of classic 1536 well microplates, thereby reducing the dead volume in different
liquid handling systems (Fig. 5).
A 1536 well standard microplate height of 10.4 mm enables
ease of handling within all existing automated systems
without time-consuming optimisation.

FORUM

0.6Competitor
1536 well compoundstorage plate

CV 4.33 CV 4.35

Greiner Bio-One
1536 well compoundstorage plate

0.5
0.4
0.3

CV 2.44 CV 2.59

0.20.1384 well recipient plate

1536 well recipient plate

Figure 4: Acoustic liquid transfer from 1536 well
COC compound storage microplates into 384 welland 1536 well assay plates.
Compound transfer was simulated by acoustic liquid transfer
of a 50 mmol Tartrazin-DMSO solution. Two different 1536 well
COC compound storage microplates were used for a transfer
into a 384 well (20 nL Tartrazin-DMSO into 20 μl water) and1536 well (2.5 nL Tartrazin-DMSO into 2.5 μl water) recipient
microplate. Subsequently the optical density at 435 nm wasmeasured and the homogeneity of the liquid transfer wasevaluated by calculating the standard deviation and thecoefficient of variation. A difference between the two 1536 well
COC compound storage microplates was not observed.
Measurements courtesy of Dr. Carsten Pieck / Merck
Darmstadt / Germany

Figure 3: Cyclic olefin copolymers (COC)
are produced by chain copolymerisation of cyclic
monomers such as norbornene or tetracyclododecene
with ethylene

www.gbo.com

3/4

FORUM

N° 20

□ 1,7

□ 1,34Item No. 782855

52

10,4 ±0,1

10,4 ±0,125,15□ 1,7□ 1,53Item No. 782101
127,76 ±0,252,2585,48 ±0,257,8711,01

Item No. 782855

Item No. 782101

Well depth

5.15 mm

5 mm

Well diameter top

1.7 mm

1.7 mmWell diameter bottom

1.34 mm1.53 mm

Microplate height

10.4 mm10.4 mm

Length127.76 mm

127.76 mm

Width85.48 mm85.48 mm

A1 position

7.87 / 11.01 mm

7.87 / 11.01 mm

Well to well2.25 mm2.25 mmFigure 5: Well design of the 1536 well COC storage platecompared to the well design of a standard polystyrene microplate (Item No. 782101).The more tapered well geometry of the low deadvolume 1536 well storage microplate (Item No. 782855) reduces dead volume in different liquid handling systems.

1536 Well Microplate for Compound Storage
Well profile: F-bottom, Bottom: solid, Lid: noItem No.

Well format

Raw material

Product colour

7828551536

cycloolefin

clear

Plate geometry

Working volume (well)

Qty. inner / outer

HiBase1 μl - 10 μl

15 / 60

Devices of Greiner Bio-One are to be used by properly qualified persons only in accordance with the relevant Instructions forUse (IFU), where applicable. For more information contact your local Greiner Bio-One sales representative or visit our website(www.gbo.com). All information is provided without guarantee despite careful processing. Any liability, warranty or guarantee ofGreiner Bio-One GmbH is excluded. All rights, errors and changes are reserved. If not stated otherwise, Greiner Bio-One GmbHhas all copyrights and/or other (user-)rights in this documents, in particular to signs such as the mentioned (word-picture-)
brands and logos. Any use, duplication or any other use of the rights of Greiner Bio-One GmbH is expressly prohibited.
Media owner: Greiner Bio-One GmbH / Represented by Managing Directors Jakob Breuer and Heinz Schmid. The company isregistered in the Commercial Register at the first instance court in Stuttgart, HRB 224604 / VAT Number: DE812585719.
Greiner Bio-One GmbH Frickenhausen, Germany
PHONE +49 7022 948-0 / FAX +49 7022 948-514 / E-MAIL info@de.gbo.com
Greiner Bio-One is a global player.
Find the contact details of your local partner on our website.

F073795 [rev. 11.2021]

4/ ORDERING INFORMATION