Experimental overview
Running a Combocat experiment can loosely be thought of as design ➝ execute ➝ analyze.
The documentation here provides information on the design and execution steps.
Required Materials
Regardless of your experiment setup, you’ll need some materials and access to instruments.
This documentation focuses on the luminescence-based CTG assay.
Combocat is generalizable to the readout of your choice (e.g., imaging, fluorescence, etc). Swap out materials accordingly.
Microwell plates
384-well for dense mode, 1536-well for sparse mode (suitable for cell culture)
Echo-compatible plates (if using an Echo acoustic liquid handler)
Desired drugs
- Soluble at 400X final desired top concentration
Control compounds
Positive control for cell death (i.e., Staurosporine for mammalian cells)
Vehicle control for drug solvents (i.e., DMSO)
Desired cells
- Enough for 40 µL/well per plate (Dense mode) or 4 µL/well per plate (Sparse mode)
CTG reagents
Access to instruments
Echo (or other well-to-well acoustic liquid handler)
Luminometer (or instrument specific to assay readout)
Incubator
Centrifuge capable of spinning microplates
(Optional) liquid handler for cell/reagent dispensing
Key considerations
It’s important to verify that your assay conditions are working before starting the experiment. For example:
Ensure volumes of drug stocks are sufficient for assay scale (see protocols)
Optimize cell seeding densities
Verify calibration of instruments