Enabling Technologies:

The staff off the Screening Unit is engaged in set up of novel screening technologies to enable for HTS to identify compounds, which interfere with protein interactions and enzymatic functions.

Currently we added these technologies:

• High Content Screening with automated Microscopes and
• AlphaScreen-ELISA technology based on chemiluminescence
• Impedance analysis in 96well format (6 plates in parallel, Roche)

In future we will establish automated genome-wide RNA-interference in human cells and in C.elegans.

Current Equipment:

• 2 ArrayScan® HCS Readers (Cellomics), automated fluorescence microscopic imaging systems designed for high content screening and high content analysis at the level of individual cells within an assay well. One ArrayScan® is embedded in an automated cell culture and liquid handling system (FreedomEvo, Tecan AG) which allows a 30-days performance. The instrument uses iterative auto-focussing to acquire images of each well, which are subsequently converted into numeric data that capture changes in cell size, shape, fluorescence intensity, and other properties.
• a Caliper LabChip® 3000 Platform which runs mobility shift enzymatic assays on sipper chips which allow automated sampling from 96- or 384-well plates and the parallel processing of up to 12 samples at a time. Since product and substrate are electrophoretically separated, interferences are reduced to a minimum resulting in high data quality.
• 3 Microplate Readers (Tecan) for the detection of either a continuous spectrum of light (fluorescence intensity, absorption, continuous range of wavelengths) or defined wavelengths (fluorescence polarisation, luciferase assays, real-time kinetics, luminescence, chemiluminescence).
• one EnVision® plate reader for AlphaScreen® chemiluminescent detection of protein-protein interactions with 100 fold increase of signal to noise ratio, when compared to standard ELISA techniques.
• one Roche/Aecis eXCELLIgence system for six MTP´s (96well)