Cherry-picking in an orchard: unattended LC/MS analysis from an autosampler with >32,000 samples online.
The 1,536-well microplate format has widely supplanted the 384-well microplate format for high-throughput screening and for IC(50) assays. Previously, liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) analyses of such samples required manual transfers of the wells of interest from a 1,536-well plate into a 384-well plate. Because this manual transfer introduced a source of potential error, it became clear that a more appropriate solution would be to sample directly from the 1,536-well plates. Currently, commercially available 1,536-well plate auto samplers are not compatible with Waters LC/MS systems. The authors have modified their CTC PAL autosampler to support injection from up to twenty-four 1,536-well plates. This allows them to cherry-pick any sample from up to 36,864 wells on the autosampler. Because of its success at this Institute, sampling from 1,536-well plates has not only become the preferred method for LC/MS analysis from IC(50) plates but also become the standard format used for the handling of and the sampling from large combinatorial libraries.
The Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, San Diego, California 92121, USA. nari@gnf.org
Nader
N
Ari
Lucas
L
Westling
John
J
Isbell
D002853:Chromatography, Liquid / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013056:Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods