The HybriWell Sealing System from Grace Bio Labs has been designed to create a small incubation chamber on the surface of a microscope slide that prevents the evaporation of liquids. The HybriWell system contains ports that allow for the addition or removal of liquids, which can be loaded onto the slides in a very small volume, from the chamber. When sealed, the HybriWell is water-resistant, therefore a water-bath can be used if desired. Moreover, because the chambers are hydrophobic, RNase free and have a non-cytotoxic surface any cross-interactions with a probe are avoided. The chamber can be easily removed after usage and is available in several formats, which broadens its application palette.
We use the HybriWell system in our transfection array studies, where several hundred cDNA clones spotted in an microarray format on a glass slide are incubated with transfection agent. The chamber has turned out to be very reliable in terms of its stable attachment to the glass surface and fluid impermeability. We tested several other small chamber incubation systems and the HybriWell system appeared to be the most efficient one. What is very important is that HybriWell is very easy to position on the surface due to its elasticity. Removal of the solution using a pasteur pipet attached to a vacuum does not disturb the chamber, which in our case is crucial to preserve an array arrangement of the cDNA spots.
The stability of the once attached HybriWell chamber, however, has its price. Detachment of the chamber from the glass surface requires a firm and uniform pull with tipped forceps. It takes some time to get the right feeling for a smooth and uniform removal of the well. We also realized that one should be careful when using highly viscous solutions. We recommend applying them directly onto the chamber surface and then attaching the well to the slide surface.
In summary, the HybriWell system is a straightforward solution for small volume incubations on glass surfaces. It is an efficient way of saving on expensive reagents (e.g. transfection reagents). Because of this and our overall good experiences with the HybriWell system, I recommend it to researchers who are looking for this type of tool in the fields of histology and microarray technology.
Michal Janitz, M.D.
Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics
Berlin, Germany