Investigation into the recovery of ECHO microplates using StoragePods

Observations and benefits from this investigation included:

• A microplate stored in a StoragePod’s nitrogen atmosphere for 9 years had shown only a 6% moisture uptake.
• Recovery of 4-year-old ECHO LDV plates, from an average starting DMSO concentration of 70% up to a 95% average. These being averages across 1,648 FDA approved compounds.
• Greatly improved reproducibility by returning compound stock concentrations closer to their original values.
• Resolubilization of compounds after their recovery.
• Up to a ~6-fold (0.81 log units) improvement in pIC50 values.
• Some compounds, when hydrated, experienced a loss of approximately 100-fold in potency, categorizing them as non-hits. However, this potency was restored after dehydration.
• Biochemical testing of recovered compounds showed that all those tested had improved their inhibitory activity.
• The potential for significant six-figure savings in the costs of compounds and microplate library re-plating for a library of ~350,000 compounds.

The full paper reporting on this investigation has been published in the SLAS Technology Journal and can be found by clicking the button below.

With thanks to Fraser Hughes and Alex Cookson at the Dundee University DDU.