High Content Assays
High content cellular assays can offer more physiologically relevant assay results compared to biochemical assays. Broader adoption of cellular assays has been hindered in part by costly reagents and limited availability of cells. This issue has been especially acute for assays requiring primary or stem cells. It is further exacerbated when multi-step staining procedures require large amounts of labeled antibody.
DropArray™ ensures that cells are retained throughout all assay procedures and wash steps. Each assay in a 384-well DropArray microplate uses only 100 – 2,000 cells per data point, compared to the 3,000 – 10,000 cells per data point needed for conventional microplates. For a typical siRNA screen using an immuno-assay readout, the reduced sample and reagent volumes of the DropArray platform provide at least a 75% cost-savings.
|Reagents and consumables||Costs for a conventional
microtiter plate (25µL/well)
|Costs for the DropArray 384
well plate (2µL/well)
|Transfection reagent (eg. HiPerfect)||$ 10,750||$ 1,075|
|Plate cost (for 160 plates)||$ 824||$ 4,320|
|Commercial primary antibody for whole screen||$12,900||$ 1,290|
|Total||$ 24,474||$ 6,685|
To further facilitate high content assays, DropArray microplates provide the surface and optical properties needed for growing and imaging cells, even for assays requiring high (40x) magnification. The cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) used in DropArray microplates provides almost the same high-quality imaging that glass does, allowing even sub-cellular structural changes to be imaged. The flat surface of the DropArray microplate and the lack of meniscus effects offer superior optical properties than traditional microplates.