Figure 3 The Aurora Biosciences NanoWell assay plate. The plate is constructed to have the same total-size “footprint” as industry-standard microplates. The plate contains an array of 3456 reaction wells, each with a maximum volume of 2.7 µl. The reaction well arrangement comprised a1.5-mm center-to-center distance and is scaled as a 6×6 well subdivision of the 9-mm center-to-center distance between the wells in the industry-standard 96-well microplate. The plate thickness is 3 mm. The plate is mounted in a custom-designed caddy. A close-fitting special lid covers the top of the plate and effectively seals each well against evaporation.

doi:10.1201/9780203910696-82

Chapter

Figure 3 The Aurora Biosciences NanoWell assay plate. The plate is constructed to have the same total-size “footprint” as industry-standard microplates. The plate contains an array of 3456 reaction wells, each with a maximum volume of 2.7 µl. The reaction well arrangement comprised a1.5-mm center-to-center distance and is scaled as a 6×6 well subdivision of the 9-mm center-to-center distance between the wells in the industry-standard 96-well microplate. The plate thickness is 3 mm. The plate is mounted in a custom-designed caddy. A close-fitting special lid covers the top of the plate and effectively seals each well against evaporation.

Chapter

Figure 3 The Aurora Biosciences NanoWell assay plate. The plate is constructed to have the same total-size “footprint” as industry-standard microplates. The plate contains an array of 3456 reaction wells, each with a maximum volume of 2.7 µl. The reaction well arrangement comprised a1.5-mm center-to-center distance and is scaled as a 6×6 well subdivision of the 9-mm center-to-center distance between the wells in the industry-standard 96-well microplate. The plate thickness is 3 mm. The plate is mounted in a custom-designed caddy. A close-fitting special lid covers the top of the plate and effectively seals each well against evaporation.

ABSTRACT

Chemical inertness results in the surface at the bottom of each well being difficult to derivatize with typical covalent reagents. This has both advantages and drawbacks. The advantage is that the surface composition is always known. In addition, the material is essentially nontoxic to cells introduced into the wells. The drawback is that cells need to interact with the surface in some normal physiological manner for survival (i.e., expression of metabolic phenotype, entrance into a particular phase of the growth cycle). Chemical inertness thus requires some level of derivatization to facilitate cell-substrate adhesion (Fig. 4). The well bottoms are easily treated to create an artificial extracellular matrix (e.g., poly-L-lysine, collagen, gelatin, fibro-/vitronectins, etc). Nonpolarity of the well material favors adsorption of hydrophobic reagents, potentially reducing their bioavailability. This reduction in bioavailability is mitigated by indusion of extracellular serum factors that provide carrier capabilities. In general, bioavailability scales as the

ratio of hydrophobic surface area to aqueous volume, which is approximately 50-fold greater for a well in the 96-well plate compared with a well in a NanoWell plate.