IT_Version
The Laboratory of Nanomedicine and Clinical Biophotonics (LABION) is now renewed. Thanks to a grant funded by the Italian Ministry of Health, five new state-of the-art instruments have just arrived!
We start to present the new microarray spotter, the iFOUR System, bought from M24You that provides various configurations and micro-dispensers to allow the creation of platforms adaptable to specific purposes and applications.
The iFOUR System is an automatic instrument supplied with a non-contact dispensing technology capable of handling limited volumes of most sensitive aliquots, thanks to a Piezo Driven Micro-Dispenser (PDMD) equipped with a 130 mm long borosilicate glass capillary and a cylindrical piezo ceramic actuator bonded to it. The piezo-based dispenser allows more precise and reproducible spots respect to other contact dispensing technologies.
iFOUR system can be modified with a variety of support systems for complete environment and process control; the one at LABION is equipped with the humidity and temperature controller, the wash station with pumps and bottles, controller of pressure/vacuum and a single degasser syringe pump for improved micro-dispensing performance.
Furthermore, iFOUR system has a dual camera system: a droplet control camera for the optimization of features of the drops dispensing, and an additional overhead digital camera with magnification optics (target visualization camera) positioned near the PDMD for collecting images of spots on the substrate in order to visualize their shape and the positions. The source plate holder is a fixed tray that has 24 positions where to insert the solutions to be spotted; the planar target holder is a 15x20cm plate where lots of substrates can be positioned in order to create simultaneously multiple microarrays. The instrument includes also the inDot software with which it is possible to coordinate the PDMD and create the microarray of interest.
The iFOUR is a fully customizable system; at LABION this tool is used to accurately dispense pico/nanoliter drops of ligands onto SPRi custom-specific substrates with high precision and frequency.
For the NEVERMIND project, LABION is using the system for the preparation of the microarrays on the SPRi biochip where ligands are receptors and the specific targets of drugs, in order to verify the binding kinetic of the liposomes with each identified receptor and to evaluate the interactions and the integrity of the encapsulated drugs to corresponding targets.
Moreover, LABION takes advantage of the properties of the iFOUR system for the preparation of SPRi microarrays used for the analysis of extracellular vesicles. The research projects currently ongoing at LABION in this field are focused on the detection and characterization of multiple populations of circulating extracellular vesicles as biomarkers of neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular diseases. Ligands of the SPRi microarrays are antibodies selected for the specific detection of vesicles coming from neurons, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, microglia and endothelial cells, in order to compare their levels in samples from healthy subjects and patients in different disease stages.
