Traditional approaches for protein degrader compound screening like Western blotting can be laborious, time consuming and cannot be streamlined with automation. By implementing a high-throughput, automated workflow that uses our CRISPER/Cas9 knock-in cell lines, live-cell bioluminescent assays and sensitive GloMax® Discover microplate readers, our custom assay services offer protein degradation profiling at an accelerated rate.  

To do this, we collaborated with HighRes® Biosolutions, to develop an automated system that can screen up to 100 384-well plates each day, generating roughly 40,000 data points with minimal hands-on work.

Learn how bioluminescent tools like HiBiT and NanoBRET™ technology can help you answer key questions in your targeted protein degradation research.

An important step of building this system is to integrate four GloMax® Discover microplate readers into the automated system using instrument’s built-in SiLA2 communication driver. The driver software makes it easy to connect the microplate readers with HighRes® Biosolution’s robotic components.

Check out our setup in the video below.

Integrating GloMax® Microplate Readers into an Automated Workflow

The workflow requires some initial hands-on effort to begin each day’s HT screening experiments.

1. First, we add cells into 384- or 96-well plates using a stand-alone dispenser in a cell culture hood. The dispenser can prepare a plate in less than a minute.
2. Then, we transfer the plated cells into one of our environmentally controlled incubator towers.

But after this up-front work, the automated system handles the rest.

1. The system’s robotic arm transfers plates to and from the incubator towers.
2. The acoustic nanoliter dispenser then adds test compounds to the cells. Plates are returned to the incubator after the compounds are dispensed.
3. At intervals scheduled using Cellario software, the dispensing instrument adds a bioluminescent reagent to the plated cells, initiating the assay.
4. Plates are transferred to one of four GloMax® Discover microplate readers. Luminescence is measured to provide protein degradation profiles of the test compounds.

“The system will manage the workflow for each plate, so we don’t really need to do much. I see great benefit for this sort of setup for any lab that runs compound profiling services, like CROs and academic core labs,” says Ngan Lam, Ph.D., a senior research scientist with our Tailored Research Solutions team.

The sensitivity of GloMax® microplate readers and our bioluminescent assays also make it possible to profile compounds under biologically endogenous conditions, providing more meaningful and high-quality data for your targeted protein degradation study.

Learn more about our GloMax® Microplate Readers or request a demo in your lab.

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Jordan Nutting

Jordan is formerly a science writer at Promega Corporation. She earned her PhD in Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and worked as a science reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as a AAAS Mass Media Fellow. Jordan loves reading and is always looking for book recommendations. In her spare time, Jordan also enjoys knitting, going on hikes and gardening.

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