New Cell Culture Plate Eliminates Edge Effect During Extended Incubation

A new 96-well plate is uniquely engineered to virtually eliminate evaporation during lengthy incubation, enabling full-plate usage and increased well-to-well cell consistency for improved productivity in cell culture assays at a cost comparable to a standard 96-well plate.

The Thermo Scientific Nunc Edge 2.0 96-Well Plate features a surrounding moat that when filled with sterile water or media serves as an evaporation barrier during extended incubation. As a result, edge effect and its associated risks of heterogeneous or biased results are alleviated. Even after long incubation periods of up to four days, the overall plate evaporation rate is reduced to less than 2 percent. All samples per plate can therefore be analyzed, increasing assay performance with potentially less cost and related product waste. Due to its large evaporation buffer zones, the next generation Nunc Edge 2.0 96-Well Plate eliminates well-to-well variability for optimal cell consistency across all of its 96 wells.     

“When it comes to growing healthy, viable cells in extended microplate cultures, evaporation is a common yet significant challenge that researchers face,” explains Norman Yung, vice president and general manager, labware and specialty plastics at Thermo Fisher Scientific. “In order to minimize evaporation and mitigate its negative effects, researchers typically avoid using the outer wells of a standard 96-well plate, ultimately sacrificing 37.5 percent of the plate’s available real estate. With our new Edge 2.0 plate, scientists can reclaim full use of their 96-well plate without having to worry about edge effect. Researchers can also plan their experiments more efficiently and benefit from potential cost savings as a result from using and discarding fewer plates per experiment. We are also pleased to offer the new Edge 2.0 plate at a comparable price to a standard 96-well plate, enabling researchers to benefit from this innovation without compromising tight budgets.”

The new 96-well Edge 2.0 plate is available with both cell culture-treated and non-treated surfaces to suit an extensive range of lab applications. Untreated surfaces allow researchers to add the required coatings themselves, while also being hydrophobic and thus appropriate for growth of suspension cultures that can proliferate and grow without attachment. Conversely, the certified culture-treated option is designed to facilitate cell attachment and growth and is ideal for most applications with adherent cell cultures.