Optimize Sample Performance with the SMC^® Plate Washer Evaluation Kit

• What is the SMC^® Plate Washer Evaluation Kit?
• Plate Washer Evaluation Kit Workflow
• Data from a Plate Washer Before and After Preventive Maintenance
• Materials

With SMC^® technology, immunoassays reach sensitivities in the femtogram/mL level, meaning they require both the highest performance and the highest consistency through each step of your assay workflow. Before running your precious samples, learn how to evaluate the performance of your plate washer using the SMC^® Plate Washer Evaluation Kit.

What is the SMC^® Plate Washer Evaluation Kit?

The SMC^® Plate Washer Evaluation Kit provides all the reagents required to run 5 plates, meaning that you can test multiple washers or test before and after plate washer maintenance. It also includes a unique reagent that mimics steps in the SMC^® immunoassay, with an abbreviated workflow that both isolates and highlights the performance of the plate washer. This reagent was optimized to analyze both BioTek^® 405 TS and Tecan HydroFlex™ microplate washers and to analyze data on the SMCxPRO^® immunoassay platform. With this kit, you can confirm optimal plate washer performance before evaluating your precious samples.

Plate Washer Evaluation Kit Workflow

As mentioned, this plate washer evaluation kit has an abbreviated workflow to execute assays in approximately 1 hour. The steps in the workflow help to minimize sources of error in assay execution and determine intra-plate precision.

This workflow is shown below and has 8 steps.

Learn more about tips for the SMCxPRO^® platform in our SMCxPRO^® Best Practices article.

Data from a Plate Washer Before and After Preventive Maintenance

The first data set is from a plate washer in need of preventative maintenance (Table 1). The highlighted wells, with lower Response Event values, indicate microparticle loss that will lead to poor assay precision. Nearly all columns and rows have greater than 20% CV.

Table 1. Plate washer before preventative maintenance.
Wells in orange indicate wells with visible loss of microparticles. CVs in pink are >20% CV.

The second data set is the same plate washer assessed after performing recommended maintenance procedures (Table 2).
The overall plate, column, and row precision have decreased to below 20% CV.

Table 2. The same plate washer after preventative maintenance.

Assess your plate washer performance with the SMC^® Plate Washer Evaluation Kit and assay precious samples with confidence.

For Research Use Only. Not For Use In Diagnostic Procedures.