Mirrorball for antibody screening

The versatility of Mirrorball^® permits both cell- and bead-based, fluorescent assays. It is ideally suited to mix-and-read assays suitable for antibody screening. In addition, the simultaneous, triple laser excitation and multicolour fluorescence detection capability of Mirrorball  addresses a broad range of high content cellular screening applications.

Cell-based assays:

• screening for whole antibodies and antibody fragments
• phage library screening
• cell surface receptor expression
• cytotoxicity
• proliferation
• cell cycle analysis.

Bead-based applications:

• antibody screening for soluble antigens
• quantitation of soluble proteins, e.g. chemokines

 Figure 1. Schematic of a mix-and-read assay

Mix-and-read assays

One of the most commonplace assays used in biopharmaceutical drug discovery process, particularly in antibody discovery, is the homogeneous mix-and-read assay. These simplified protocols involve adding all the assay constituents to one well and allowing them to reach equilibrium prior to analysis.

These assays are beneficial as they eliminate the requirement for wash and incubation steps which reduces cell loss. The simplified protocol results in higher throughput from reduced assay time and the assays are more cost efficient due to decreased sample and reagent usage.

With the analysis performed at equilibrium the assay is more robust which leads to improved data quality. A schematic detailing the assay is displayed in Figure 1.