Description
The InnoScan microarray scanner range: Highly precise fluorescence detection
Microarrays, either DNA, RNA, protein or glycan arrays, are highly powerful tools used to detect and screen hundreds to thousands of biomolecules on a single microscope slide. First developed for the screening of changes on mRNA profiles, microarrays are often used for the detection of chromosomal aberrations in cytogenetic labs. More recently, high density peptide and glycan microarrays are helping researchers with the development and validation of new vaccines and to investigate host-pathogen interactions, respectively.
Since the beginning of the microarray era, Innopsys’ InnoScan microarray scanners have always been some of the most powerful devices that combine high performance and robustness for scanning fluorescent microarrays.
A scanner dedicated to each microarray application:
The InnoScan scanner family is composed of different scanner models adapting to each microarray requirement. Going from single- to three-color simultaneous detection, and with a maximum resolution of 3µm/pixel to 0.5µm/pixel (varying upon each model), the InnoScans can be used to scan mostly every type of microarrays, either commercial or home-made.
For single color microarrays, either for simple cytokine or pathogen SNP screening, the InnoScan 710-G / 710-R scanners have the best cost/performance ratio for detecting green (Cy3) and red (Cy5) fluorescence, respectively.
The InnoScan 710 two color scanner is the most robust scanner. It is compatible with the most used fluorophores (Cy3 and Cy5 equivalent dyes). The InnoScan 710 is widely used to scan commercial aCGH slides as well as protein and peptide arrays.
For those using nitrocellulose (or PDVF) coated slides, the InnoScan 710-IR scanner is provided with near infrared (NIR) detection. Scanning at the NIR wavelengths have been shown to avoid the auto-fluorescence due to the microarray support. The InnoScan 710-IR is the ideal tool for applications such as the Reverse Phase Protein Arrays (RPPA) and other protein arrays for which the nitrocellulose-coated slides are recommended.
Innovative technologies allow the production of high density (HD) arrays. The HD arrays can hold up to 4 million spots on a microscope slide. The InnoScan scanner family has evolved together with these technologies. The InnoScan 910 and the InnoScan 1100 are high resolution microarray scanners capable of scanning at pixel sizes of 1 and 0.5 µm, respectively. The optical system of these scanners has been designed to diminish background, while improving fluorescence detection. The Innoscan 910 is provided with two detection channels—green and red. It is compatible with HD-oligo DNA arrays and other HD-peptide arrays. The Innoscan 1100- is the best option for three-color detection, as it is compatible with Alexa 488, Cy3 and Cy5 dyes.
The InnoScan 1100 is widely used to scan glycan arrays, as well as ultra-HD peptide arrays. The three different focus processes present on this scanner automatically adapt to scan on uneven surfaces. This makes it possible to conduct cell and tissue microarray (TMA) scans on a single step, and without any user intervention. Assuring an optimal focalization on the whole scan surface is necessary to perform quantitative analyses, and to compare between different tissue cores contained within the TMA.
Reproducible and reliable results:
The high performances of the InnoScans guarantee reproducible and reliable results. All the InnoScan scanners are provided with a validation slide which is used to test the scanner features at any time.
The image acquisition and processing is done by the Mapix microarray image analysis software. Mapix can perform automatic image acquisition, either for a single slide or for a 24-slide batch. The dynamic range can be adapted from 16-bit to 20-bit, better representing the biological dynamic range. Mapix is also used for image analysis. With a powerful gridding algorithm, Mapix allows for rapid and efficient microarray analysis.