Microplate Shaker | How to Choose a Microplate Shaker

How to Choose a Microplate Shaker

About Microplate Shakers

Microplate shakers are ideal for cell lysis, mixing tissue samples or cytogenetic suspensions, and vortexing cell suspensions.  Applications may include immunoassays, ELISA, cell cultures, denaturation of nucleic acids and proteins, stains and blots.  The microplate shakers are used to emulsify bipolar viscous fluids to obtain a homogenous blend. A variety of accessories are available to customize microplate shaker for various applications. With digital controls, the shaking speed and run time for specific testing conditions can be programmed for continuous operations. If incubation is necessary for applications in your laboratory, an incubator hood can be used for the operation of the microplate shaker. The Edmund Buhler microplate shakers are made in Germany with the highest quality standards to deliver the trusted performance and reliability required by biology research labs for cutting edge research and discovery. 

Laboratory Microplate Shakers are ideal for mixing microtiter plates. 

Microtiter plates have many uses.

• Perhaps the best known is the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Optimal ELISA results are obtained when the enzymes and substrates are well mixed.

• Microtiter plates are also used for cell culture and high through put screening of small molecules. Naturally, the investigator will desire proper mixing in what can be anywhere from six to 384 wells of a microtiter plate.

• Microtiter plates have even been used in isolation and processing of biological material. Microtiter plate, or just plate, centrifuges are commercially available. If one is using this set up to isolate DNA from 96 samples, surely proper mixing during the digestion steps would be advantageous.

The TiMix 2, small and simple

The TiMix 2 is the simplest microtiter plate shaker that Edmund-Buhler makes. If the user wants to increase the utility of the TiMix 2, an additional shaking platform and clamping strips may be purchased.

The TiMix 5, when the project is bigger

The TiMix 5 is the next step up in complexity and size. The customer may choose from the dial controlled model in which shaking velocity and times are set by dials, and the computer controlled model (TiMix 5 Control). A USB or control cable connects to a computer that allows user control of shaking times and velocities. The shaker may be programmed with up to five time/velocity steps using the computer interface options.

After deciding on the standard versus programmable digital base, the customer must pick accessories. This includes every thing from the shaker platform to pins to hold the plates in place!

The customer must purchase the standard rack with the option to buy an additional tray for two story shaking. As most customers are aware, microtiter plates may be stacked. Edmund Buhler offers several options for stacking microtiter plates.

About 48 plates may be stacked with the high clamping pin system. The metal clamping pin system may be used to accommodate even more plates.

Who uses Edmund-Buhler microtiterplate shakers?

Sometimes how others use a product can be helpful for new users.

Microplate Shaker TiMix 2

Degering and coworkers used this device for screening soil bacteria in 1mL volumes in deep well 96 well microtiter plates. Beier and coworkers used this shaker for an alkali lysis step of cell culture pellets for the purpose of DNA isolation. Mixing and centrifugation were performed in 384 well microtiter plates.

Degering C, Eggert T, Puls M, Bongaerts J, Evers S, Maurer KH, Jaeger KE.(2010)Optimization of protease secretion in Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus licheniformis by screening of homologous and heterologous signal peptides. Appl Environ Microbiol. 76(19):6370-6. Free to Download Paper

Beier S et al (2017) Construction of a map-based reference genome sequence for barley, Hordeum vulgare L. Sci Data. 4:170044. Free to Download Paper

Microplate Shaker TiMix 5

Skoczinski and coworkers (2017) used the TiMix 5, and perhaps the TH 15 hood incubator, to screen Bacillus subtilis bacteria expressing a library of lipase mutants. Their experiments included a variety of temperatures, shaking velocities, and times. If they used the TiMix 5 control, they didn’t say as much. Domröse and coworkers used the TiMix/TH shaker/incubator system to study the production of small molecules (30°C and shaking) in another soil bacterium. They also used the TiMix/TH system for a chemical assay that required shaking at 50°C. This group used constant shaking. Irtiz-Soto and coworkers (2017) used the TiMix 5 to study enzyme expression in another soil bacterium. They also used a variety of rotational velocity/times and temperatures.

Perhaps a bacterium may be induced to express a certain protein by lowering or raising the temperature. Raising the temperature may decrease the dissolved oxygen, hence the need for more vigorous shaking. The TiMix 5 Control has the potential to be very adaptable.

Elena Ortiz-Soto M, Possiel C, Görl J, Vogel A, Schmiedel R, Seibel J.(2017)Impaired coordination of nucleophile and increased hydrophobicity in the +1 subsite shift levansucrase activity towards transfructosylation. Glycobiology. 2017 May 30. doi: 10.1093/glycob/cwx050. Free to Download Paper

Domröse A, Weihmann R, Thies S, Jaeger KE, Drepper T, Loeschcke A. (2017) Rapid generation of recombinant Pseudomonas putida secondary metabolite producers using yTREX. Synth Syst Biotechnol. 2(4):310-319. Free to Download Paper

Skoczinski P, Volkenborn K, Fulton A, Bhadauriya A, Nutschel C, Gohlke H, Knapp A, Jaeger KE. (2017) Contribution of single amino acid and codon substitutions to the production and secretion of a lipase by Bacillus subtilis. Microb Cell Fact. 16(1):160. Free to Download Paper

Will a TiMix fit into my laboratory?

These are the numbers

Many users may want the TH 15 incubator hood

Temperature range: 5°C above ambient to +50°C

Inner dimensions (w x d x h): 90 x 410 x 310 mm

Outer Dimensions (w x d x h): 510 x 450 x 455 mm

Weight: 21 kg