Considering the expense of the solvents and their disposal, and the amount of time needed to perform the washing, such a procedure would only make sense if the supply of plates were severely limited due to cost or difficulty with delivery. These plates cost about $4 each in the US.
Chloroform should not be used because it will dissolve the plastic. Ethanol should be compatible. You could also consider a strong detergent, such as SDS. You would also have to make sure to remove all solvent and detergent residues, and dry the plates thoroughly after rinsing with distilled water.
If the plates you are using have been treated to enhance protein binding, the washing procedure might alter the binding properties.
I have never heard of anyone trying to clean and reuse 96-well polystyrene plates. They are meant to be disposable.
@Adam B Shapiro: Every lab has its own situation, though it is not recommended, this is doable.
@Norman Lapin: It depends on the samples u put in the wells. Normally, wash by ethanol one time then wash by miliQ water one time is enough. But some dyes may need acetonitril or even chloroform(CHCl3). Also, take care that these organic solvent may dissolve your well plate.
Considering the expense of the solvents and their disposal, and the amount of time needed to perform the washing, such a procedure would only make sense if the supply of plates were severely limited due to cost or difficulty with delivery. These plates cost about $4 each in the US.
Chloroform should not be used because it will dissolve the plastic. Ethanol should be compatible. You could also consider a strong detergent, such as SDS. You would also have to make sure to remove all solvent and detergent residues, and dry the plates thoroughly after rinsing with distilled water.
If the plates you are using have been treated to enhance protein binding, the washing procedure might alter the binding properties.
Thank you for your responses. I agree that harsh solvents could warp the wells. Seems ethanol and water then could work for plates that were unused but left in the open air and may have just collected dust.
I sympathize with the sentiment of reusing them - is there really a reason to buy a huge batch - they usually are sold in ~50 and ~100 packs, if what you will end up using for a project is 10 and you have procured 3 leftover plates from someone.
Some things are not about how much it costs, but how much sense it makes to order something ~90% of which you will never use...
I looked around and couldn't find any suppliers US/Canada selling 96-well black plates in packages of less than ~50.
Does anyone know whether something is effective for washing FITC-labelled 4kDa dextran out of those plates?
Best regards,
Dennis
Adam B Shapiro In the 1990s many labs in Russia were even washing plastic tips. :)
IonField Systems sells the Microplate Cleaning System. It works with 96, 384, and 1536 format microplates, all solid - optical - label-free detection, and virtually all assay modalities. I was the PI on the NIH award that funded the product's development and am the CEO of the company.
Norman Lapin I understand your need, in my laboratory we have the need to refuse plates, so the methodology used for cleaning is important:
1. remove the contents of the plates with deionized water
2. wash with laboratory soap (I use Decon ™) and rinse with deionized water 3. place the plates in an ultrasonicator with deionized water for 40 min
4. dry in oven at 36 ºC (you should check that the drying is even ... as in the glass you should not see any drops or poor drying this is very important)
5. in the plate reader in one of the wells put some compound that you know the absorbance and corroborate the value .... if this is the expected the plate is clean and you can use it again
as extra tips:
1: Although you wash the plates, do not mix them between tests (ex I determine antioxidants, do not mix those that deal with ABTS with those of DPPH)
2. Take care of how the you keep after washing them ... wrap them in cloth or paper that does not scratch the bottom, and if you see them scratched the plates should be thrown away
3. Just like when you wash them, you should be very careful not to scratch the underside, wash with a sponge or some material that does not mistreat the bottom
4. when you always dry them with the lower part facing up, it is therefore important not to scratch them
5. If you do tests that require sterility of the microplate they cannot be washed, it is necessary to throw them away
I hope it helps you
Norman Lapin,
Thanks for initiating this discussion. I was searching for the same answer. See below what I also found:
https://www.cygnustechnologies.com/resources/guidelines/?id=864
See also these instructions on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQIJG8tgu_4
All best.
Ionfield Systems (www.ionfieldsystems.com) sells an instrument to clean microplates (Microplate Cleaning System) for extended reuse. The NIH recently posted a chapter on selecting and improving the performance of microplates in the Assay Guidance Manual with extensive information on microplates (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK558077/).
I am a co-author of this AGM chapter and the inventor of the atmospheric pressure plasma cleaning technology IonField uses for cleaning microplates.
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