Liquid filling in standard circular well microplates

It is often assumed that droplets dispensed into standard microplate wells will automatically fill their bottoms. We show here by computational simulation and experimental verification that the ability to fill the well bottom is dependent on the surface wetting characteristics. The release of droplets at the center was also found to fill the well bottom better than droplet dispensation in contact with the well wall. Hydrophobic surfaces required higher liquid volumes to fill the well bottom; unlike the case with capillary wells microplates. This renders standard microplate wells less amenable for use in small volume liquid handling; a feature that is increasingly sought after in screening and studies involving scarce agents.

[1]  A. Neild,et al.  Capillary Wells Microplate with Side Optical Access , 2010, Journal of biomolecular screening.

[2]  N Risch,et al.  High-throughput genotyping with single nucleotide polymorphisms. , 2001, Genome research.

[3]  S. Kale,et al.  Zinc oxide nanoparticles as novel alpha-amylase inhibitors , 2008 .

[4]  Capillary well microplate , 2008 .

[5]  M. Davies,et al.  Mapping the Surface Characteristics of Polystyrene Microtiter Wells by a Multimode Scanning Force Microscopy Approach , 2001 .

[6]  P. Lai,et al.  Multifunctional doxorubicin/superparamagnetic iron oxide-encapsulated Pluronic F127 micelles used for chemotherapy/magnetic resonance imaging , 2010 .

[7]  Kenneth A. Brakke,et al.  The Surface Evolver , 1992, Exp. Math..

[8]  John Thomas Bradshaw,et al.  Importance of Integrating a Volume Verification Method for Liquid Handlers: Applications in Learning Performance Behavior , 2007 .

[9]  Kai-Liang Wang,et al.  DEP actuated nanoliter droplet dispensing using feedback control. , 2009, Lab on a chip.

[10]  M. M. Bradford A rapid and sensitive method for the quantitation of microgram quantities of protein utilizing the principle of protein-dye binding. , 1976, Analytical biochemistry.

[11]  David E Root,et al.  Detecting Spatial Patterns in Biological Array Experiments , 2003, Journal of biomolecular screening.

[12]  Lorenz M Mayr,et al.  The Future of High-Throughput Screening , 2008, Journal of biomolecular screening.

[13]  M. Iadarola,et al.  Rapid serological detection of autoantibodies associated with Sjögren's syndrome , 2009, Journal of Translational Medicine.

[14]  Adrian Neild,et al.  Microfluidic mixing under low frequency vibration. , 2009, Lab on a chip.

[15]  Tuck Wah Ng,et al.  Point spread function effect in image-based fluorescent microplate detection. , 2010, Analytical biochemistry.

[16]  Na Lu,et al.  Effect of washing on surface free energy of polystyrene plate treated by RF atmospheric pressure plasma , 2006 .

[17]  Argon plasma treatment of polystyrene microtiter wells. Chemical and physical characterisation by contact angle, ToF-SIMS, XPS and STM , 2000 .

[18]  B. Khuri-Yakub,et al.  Nozzleless droplet formation with focused acoustic beams , 1989 .