Roche Applied Science has introduced the Lightcycler 1536 system, which is capable of performing high-speed, quantitative PCR (qPCR)-based DNA/RNA analyses in an array-like format.
According to the company, large-scale, PCR-based gene analysis can only be performed if signals are generated, captured and analysed in a highly reproducible manner.
More precisely, thermal control, optical readout and the algorithms used to characterise genes qualitatively and quantitatively have to be highly accurate and reliable.
The Lightcycler 1536 system, which utilises a proprietary 1,536-well plate, is claimed to meet these requirements.
Manfred Baier, head of Roche Applied Science, said: 'By scaling up qPCR throughput while miniaturising individual reactions, we have produced the next generation of a powerful nucleic-acids analysis system, combining the strengths of qPCR with the parallelism and throughput capability of low-density microarrays.' The instrument is based on the Lightcycler 480 platform architecture.
It comes with a novel thermal cycler module, tailored for heating and cooling miniaturised qPCRs in a multi-well plate with 1,536 individual reaction wells.
The Lightcycler 1536 instrument supports the combination of two excitation filters with two detection filters, which are optimised for detecting green intercalating dyes as well as mono- and dual-colour hydrolysis probes.
This makes the optical read-out as specific as possible for chemical detection formats, while reducing the overall complexity of experimental layouts in a high-throughput scenario.
The basic software module of the system allows users to easily set up and run reaction protocols, according to the company.
Compared to classic Lightcycler systems, the Lightcycler 1536 software is particularly suitable for enhancing compatibility for automated high-throughput data-analysis workflows.
The Lightcycler 1536 multi-well plate is said to be the first high-density PCR plate for real-time PCR applications.
Using Thermaxis technology, this multi-well plate, which has been developed by IT-IS International, enables unsurpassed thermal performance in miniaturised reaction volumes of 0.5uL to 2uL, according to Roche Applied Science.
The plate consists of two components: a thermally conductive unit containing well-like structures for the reaction liquid and an insulating top layer that prevents the heated lid of the instrument from affecting the analysis.
An important trend in biological and biochemical analysis over the past 15 years has been the miniaturisation and parallelisation of analytical procedures.
The large-scale, high-throughput analysis of gene expression or genetic polymorphisms is an important element of modern functional genomics, where individual samples are screened against thousands of target genes.
According to the company, its high sensitivity and accuracy make qPCR the gold standard for precisely profiling gene expression levels or genotyping known SNPs.
