mosquito LCP for Automated Lipidic Cubic Phase Screening (LCP)

The TTP Labtech mosquito LCP has been designed specifically to be able to deal with the highly viscous LCP mixture, a problem that some liquid handling systems have. The mosquito LCP is able to accurately dispense the LCP mixture used in membrane protein crystallisation experiments. Furthermore, it allows the user to automate LCP experiments with a high level of accuracy and repeatability.

Benefits For Automated Lipidic Cubic Phase Screening

The TTP Labtech mosquito LCP has many benefits for those involved with membrane protein screening and scale-up. These include:

The ability to dispense LCP volumes as low as 25nL
Preservation of valuable samples through the usage of smaller sample volumes
Automatic syringe calibration
Automated pipette positioning
Precise drop-on-drop placement, which provides for easy automated imaging
Automated vapour diffusion set-ups allowing you to use both tradional and LCP protein crystallisation experiments in any commercially available plate. This can be achieved using one instrument with no requirement for configuration, hardware or software changes
No risk of cross contamination through the use of positive displacement disposable tips
Small footprint

Automated Experiments

The mosquito LCP allows the automation of various experimental techniques including:

Hanging drop
Sitting drop
Microbatch
Seeding
Additive screening

These can all be performed using a single instrument.

in meso Experiments

The in meso experimentation technique employs highly viscous liquid mesophases that contain the insoluble membranes proteins for crystallisation. These mesophases can be almost solid at room temperature and can be difficult to recombine following the addition of the protein making accurate dispensing and precise drop positioning difficult. The mosquito LCP addresses these issues by:

Providing an optional mixer to help with creation of a homogeneous lipid mix
The dispensing needle and disposable pipettes use positive displacement pipetting to ensure accurate pipetting
Automated calibration of the LCP dispense needle, combined with highly accurate positioning of screen solutions ensures perfect drop-on-drop placement

Applications

Some applications for the mosquito Crystal include:

Optimisation of crystal formation using microseeding
Stabilisation of membrane proteins
Crystallisation of membrane proteins

Specifications

Dispense range	25nL - 1200nL
Plate/Deck capacity	2 or 4
Experimental setup type	LCP, hanging drop, sitting drop, microbatch, bicelle
Plate set up time	<2 mins LCP set up <5mins
Dead volume	<0.3 μL
Min accessible volume	10nL
Dimensions (w x d x h)	450 x 590 x 690 mm
Weight	34kg
Services	220V single phase 50/60 Hz
Noise	64 dBA peak noise during operation
Optional extras	Humidity chamber, LCP mixer