The white MatriPlate microplates were specifically
designed for luminescence applications such as reporter
gene assays using LucLite™
or with SPA applications on the Amersham LeadSeeker™
system. Nearly all plastics show some degree of natural
phosphorescence when exposed to either natural or artificial
light. The white plastic used in the manufacture of white MatriPlate
microplates has a much lower natural phosphorescence than
other white plastics currently used in plate manufacture.
As shown in Figure 2, the white MatriPlate microplates has a much lower natural phosphorescence (2500 IODs
vs. ~ 35000 IODs) and decays to background in less than
30 minutes, whereas a standard 1536-well plate, constructed
from white polystyrene requires over 30 hours to decay to
background. Typically, this means that either you have to
wait an inordinately long time before reading the plate
or that you have to filter out the interfering phosphorescence.
If a filter is used to remove the interference, 40-90% of
the signal you aretrying to
measure is lost due to the filter.
Getting
the Most from your White MatriPlate:
As with the MatriPlate black plate,
it is essential that the focal height of the detector be
optimized for the plate type and wavelength of light that
is being detected. Once this parameter is defined for the
plate and wavelength, it can be saved and used for all future
applications. Since these plates have a low natural phosphorescence
that decays rapidly to background levels, filtering is not
needed unless readings must be taken prior to a 30 minute
incubation in the dark.
Figure 1A. MatriPlate 1536 Signal Intensity:
Figure
1B. Greiner 1536 Signal Intensity:
The
unique well design of the MatriPlate 1536 allows for a more
uniform excitation. Deep narrow wells such as those typically
found in other types of 1536 well plates lead to excessive
shadowing as shown above. As an example, both the MatriPlate
1536 and Greiner 1536 well plates were loaded with 3ul of
50nM Fluorescein in PBS and imaged (Figure 1A and 1B). As
can be seen, due to the unique well shape of the MatriPlate
1536 the entire plate receives a much more uniform excitation
(and thus emission) whereas the deep narrow wells of the
Greiner 1536 well plate lead to excessive shadowing (as
seen by the crescent emission from the square wells and the
dark center of the plate).
Figure 2:
