CELL BIOLOGY
cells? Are the cells imaged at the center
The bottom line is that every cell
of probes and detection modalities. Of
of the well behaving the same as those
matters, because every cell is telling
course, not all cell imaging platforms
on the periphery? Without whole-well
an important part of the story. If you
perform the task as well or as efficiently
information, such questions are difficult,
capture just a few images from an entire
as you need them to, particularly if your
if not impossible, to answer
well, or rely on a population-averaged
work involves kinetic analysis of living
with confidence.
measurement, you are settling for a
cells. It therefore pays to research what
smaller effective sample size (less robust
is available on the market, and know
• Rare events and phenotypes –
statistics) and literally throwing away
which factors are critical to enabling
Capturing rare events and cell
valuable data!
high quality whole-well imaging for both fixed and live-cell assays.
phenotypes is often essential for applications as diverse as clonal
Get the whole story with whole-well
selection, elucidation of molecular
imaging
mechanisms in disease and pathogen detection. It is easy to miss rare, transient or localized events if your detection system averages the responses or does not interrogate enough cells in a single pass. For the most statistically robust results, it makes sense to analyze every cell in the sample. This includes taking a look at cell morphology, which can tell you a lot about cell health, viability, function and developmental state. • Assay quality – A colleague in the pharmaceutical industry once wasted six months thinking he had discovered a powerful inhibitor, when the truth was that the decrease in assay activity was an artifact due to overly forceful addition of compound into the well. Why didn’t he notice this sooner? Because he
The answer? One of the best and least destructive tools for capturing all of the individual cell data from hundreds or even thousands of cells at a time is whole-well imaging. Reliable whole-well imaging, where the entire
If you suspect your cell-based assays are telling you only half the story, check out our new Spark® Cyto, the first live cell imaging microplate reader to offer real-time cytometry. Visit www.tecan.com/sparkcyto
well area is captured in a single shot, has only entered the mainstream relatively recently. Even more recent is the emergence of whole-well imaging capabilities for multimode plate readers. Progress has been slow, largely because of the technical challenges inherent in achieving sufficient resolution and definition at the well edges without compromising too much on acquisition speed. Whole-well imaging increases the power of multimode microplate readers
was imaging at the center of the well,
Fortunately, the technical obstacles
when the damage was being initiated
are being overcome, and there are
at the edge, where the liquid dispense
now more types of systems on the
head was positioned. This is just one
market that offer whole-well imaging.
of many examples where looking at
Multimode microplate readers with
the entire well can provide important
whole-well imaging capabilities are
clues about assay quality, such as edge
particularly powerful, because they give
effects, mixing problems and more.
you the freedom to use a broad range
www.tecan.com/blog TECAN JOURNAL 2/2019
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