QPix 400 Series Microbial Colony Pickers

Antibiotic Zone of Inhibition

The effectiveness of an antibiotic-producing bacterial strain on a target bacterial strain can be measured by the size of the clearing zone it produces on a lawn of bacteria. QPix Software allows you to rapidly identify, rank, and pick microbial colonies producing clearing zones. Intelligent image analysis enables measurement of clearing zones within a lawn and ranking based on colony size, halo diameter, and compactness.

Biofuels

One of the most prominent alternative energy resources is biodiesel, an energy-rich portable fuel mainly composed of triacylglycerols. Biodiesel production from lipid producing microbial systems involves screening thousands of clones through a multitude of tests such as bicinchoninic acid (BCA) assays, optical density measurements, and gas chromatography assays. QPix colony pickers automate the task of colony picking, a laborious and error-prone process, effectively shortening timelines to find suitable candidates.

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Blue-White Screening

Screening of bacterial transformants that contain recombinant plasmids with cloned gene inserts is an essential step in molecular cloning. A colorimetric reporter method called “blue-white screening” allows convenient identification of recombinant and non-recombinant colonies based on color. QPix colony pickers offer an automated solution especially designed for accurate blue-white colorimetric screening using white light imaging for effective monitoring of transformation efficiency. Other colorimetric approaches such as “red-white screening” can also be implemented on the systems. 

DNA Sequencing

Sequencing is the reading of the precise order of adenine (A) guanine (G) cytosine (C) and thymine (T) nucleotides within a molecule of DNA. Shotgun sequencing is a method whereby DNA is fragmented into one kilobase pieces, are then sub-cloned into circular plasmids, and transformed into bacteria. Automated colony picking is essential for increased throughput and plasmid isolation for sequencing. QPix colony pickers are renown for reliability and accuracy, and were used by many sequencing centers during the Human Genome Project. Many areas of research, such as vaccine development, continue to utilize traditional sequencing techniques.

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Phage Display

Phage Display is a technique to enable the study of protein, peptide or DNA interaction with a target protein. This molecular tool enables the discovery of high-affinity binders by using bacteriophages to present a target protein on the exterior of the viral coat, while containing the DNA encoding the target protein inside the viral coat. The resultant displaying phages can be screened for binding against a library of peptides or proteins in a high throughput fashion. QPix colony pickers can be used to automate inoculation, plating, spreading and picking in a Phage Display workflow.  

Protein Evolution

Protein evolution describes the changes over time in protein shape, function, and composition. Directed evolution of proteins has proven to be an effective strategy for altering or ameliorating the activity of macromolecules for industrial, research, and therapeutic applications. With multiple fluorescent filters, the system is compatible with a wide range of fluorescent cloning vectors. This enables QPix colony pickers to reveal unique information about individual colonies when studying protein folding, enzyme evolution, and protein localization. This includes searching for transformation markers and screening for mutations.