Overview
The Liquid Selection Criteria element allows you to set minimum and maximum transfer limits to use in combination with the Calculate Required Stocks (stock generation) feature of Describe Liquids and Plates. Use in Make Mixtures, Mix Onto and Dilute elements, with or without deferred transfers.
You can set min/max transfer volumes per liquid or group of liquids, influencing stock generation, and potentially overriding device constraints. When using this element generally we prefer stocks that are more concentrated. This can be fine tuned by setting the maximum transfer volume.
Some situations where adjusting the minimum and/or maximum transfer volume would be helpful include:
dispensing viscous liquids, increasing the minimum volume for greater accuracy;
reducing maximum volume (and thus time) when using a discrete dispenser with a small transfer size;
fine-tuning the stock concentrations with Calculate Required Stocks (stock generation);
using multi-mode combined with deferred transfers to utilise the most accurate dispenser for each liquid transfer.
š” Liquid Selection Criteria is not required if you are able to achieve your desired liquid handling using the default minimum transfer volume of the device(s).
Minimum transfer volumes:
Beckman ECHO 600 series = 2.5 nl
Beckman ECHO 500 series = 25 nl
Gyger CertusFlex = 50 nl *depends on the configuration
SPT Dragonfly = 200 nl
Formulatrix Mantis = 100 nl, 1 ul or 5 ul *chip dependent
Formulatrix Tempest = 200 nl *chip dependent
How to define your Liquid Selection Criteria:
Synthace provides you with the capability of defining minimum and/or maximum transfer volumes using the Liquid selection criteria element. This allows Synthace to choose which of the available liquids should be used based on the criteria that you have set, either for an individual liquid or a group of liquids, or to create an appropriate stock to fulfil your requirements.
There are 2 ways to use Liquid selection criteria :
Connect an instance of
Liquid selection criteriato an individualMake Mixtures,Mix OntoorDiluteelement to control the transfer volumes for that element.Connect āRemaining Transfers to Completeā and defer transfers of one or more liquids to a
Mix Ontoelement after defining your entire mixture or dilutions in aMake MixturesorDiluteelement.
In the example below, we design all the mixtures in a Make Mixtures element but defer the Master Mix addition to a Mix Onto element:
Echo Stage: Plan all mixtures, using Liquid Selection add <300 nl volumes of siRNAs
Dragonfly stage: backfill with up to 80 ul of Master Mix.
Then, by setting the maximum transfer volume for āMaster Mixā in Liquid Selection Criteria we apply a larger maximum transfer volume of 80 ul to the Dragonfly, whilst selecting ādefaultā applies a 300 nl maximum transfer to the remainder of our liquids, in this case, all the siRNAs.
Note: The specified minimum volume represents the threshold at which you are satisfied with transferring liquid from one of your stock solutions. Should the transfer volume for a particular stock fall below this threshold, Synthace will create a more diluted stock solution to ensure that the transfer volume exceeds the minimum specified value.