title: Robotic high-throughput assay for isolating apoptosis-inducing genes.
abstract: The need to assign functions to genes will increase in upcoming years because of the accumulation of sequence information from various organisms. Here we present a genetic screen for the systematic functional analysis of genes in mammalian cells. The screen is based on high-throughput, transient transfections of individual cDNAs by a robotic system. This construction uses a moveable pipetting head with a novel 96-channel parallel tube-pump array and an integrated de-lidding device. Because of the robot design, the processing speed can reach 2,000 transfections/h. We demonstrate the suitability of the screen to isolate apoptosis-inducing genes as a first read-out. This is achieved in combination with co-transfected reporter plasmids to produce a novel and convenient assay for apoptosis induction.
authors.affiliation: Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany. sgrimm@biochem.mpg.de
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Grimm
authors.forename: Volker
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kachel
mesh_terms: D000469:Alkaline Phosphatase / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000235:genetics*; D002460:Cell Line; D006224:Cricetinae; D017930:Genes, Reporter; D023281:Genomics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D007668:Kidney / Q000166:cytology; D010957:Plasmids; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014162:Transfection; D001616:beta-Galactosidase / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D000469:Alkaline Phosphatase; D001616:beta-Galactosidase