TTP LabTech reports that Cancer Research UK (CRUK) has recently purchased an Acumen eX3 microplate cytometer to run an RNAi whole genome screen to identify cytotoxic survival regulators
The Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute (LRI) has recently established a high-throughput screening facility to enable its research groups to easily access genome-wide siRNA and RNAi screening technologies.
The 46 research groups at the LRI are engaged in innovative biological research to improve understanding of cancer.
The techniques employed are hugely varied and encompass approaches using anything from yeast to flies to human cells.
The human genome siRNA collection contains approximately 22,000 genes spread over some 267 96-well plates; and a typical genome screen in triplicate would require 801 plates to be analysed.
Therefore the LRI facility needs equipment that is robust, capable of high-throughput and very flexible to accommodate all of the possible interests of the research groups.
"Our extended trial of the Acumen eX3 demonstrated that it met all of these needs.
"In the immediate future it will enable us to perform very complicated assays measuring 20-30 cell cycle related parameters for every cell in every well of every plate" said the LRI's Mike Howell.
"In the longer term we can see applications across a whole range of assays, species and cell types including multi-parametric analysis of mixed cell populations, wound healing assays and cell adhesion assays".
The Acumen eX3 will be used to complement the existing infrastructure of automated microscopes, but will also be used as an investigative tool in its own right.
The high throughputs achieved by the Acumen eX3 means that to screen the whole genome will take days, compared to the same screen taking at least two years on a flow-based instrument.
It can read an entire 384-well plate in under ten minutes, and this includes multiplexing the assay with other biomarkers.
A recent study (Kittler, R et al, Nature Cell Biology 2007; 9: 1401-1412) looking at genome-scale RNAi profiling of cell division in human tissue culture cells was screened on an Acumen microplate cytometer.
The siRNA library targeted 17,828 genes, and identified 252 previously uncharacterised genes as being involved in the regulation of the cell cycle.
