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www.us-tech.com
June, 2018
Plasma Treatment is Adding to the Value of Plastic Labware
By Jeff Elliott
ware items are manufactured for use in research, drug discovery and diagnostic testing. Although many are simple, inexpensive con-
E
sumables, more of these items are now being sur- face treated using gas plasma or have functional coatings specifically designed to improve the qual- ity of research and increase the sophistication of diagnostics. Among the goals of surface modification is im-
proved adhesion and/or proliferation of antibodies, proteins, cells and tissue, as well as improved sig- nal-to-noise ratio so testing is more precise with less target material or markers required. For some labware manufacturers, altering
the properties of these devices can also make sense from a business perspective. In a market dominat- ed by several large labware manufacturers, more specialized offerings can create a competitive edge and drive up the value of each consumable. For those creating next-generation medical diagnostic devices, coated or plasma treated labware opti- mized for the testing can improve the quality, specificity and efficacy of the results as well. “With polystyrene or polypropylene labware,
if you can add a functional coating or use plasma to alter the surface properties you can turn a $2 item into a $50 item,” says Mic Barden, head of re- search and development at PVA TePla America, a system engineering firm that designs plasma sys- tems for surface activation, coating, ultra-fine cleaning, and etching. Plasma is a state of matter, like a solid, liquid
MID AMERICA Taping and Reeling, Inc.
ach year, billions of multi-well plates, pipettes, bottles, flasks, vials, Eppendorf tubes, culture plates, and other polymer lab-
or gas. When enough energy is added to a gas, it becomes ionized, turning into plasma. The collec- tive properties of these active ingredients can be controlled to clean, activate, chemically graft, and deposit a wide range of chemistries.
Labware Plasma Treatment Multi-well, or microtiter, plates are a stan-
dard tool in analytical research and clinical diag-
nostic testing laboratories. Most plates come with 96, 384 or 1536 sample “wells” that function as small test tubes. The most common material used to manufac-
ture microtiter plates is polystyrene, because it is biologically inert, has excellent optical clarity and is tough enough to withstand daily use. Most dis- posable cell culture dishes and plates are also made of polystyrene. Other polymers, such as polypropylene and
polycarbonate, are also used for applications that must withstand a broad range of temperatures — such as those necessary for polymerase chain reac- tion (PCR) for DNA amplification. To improve biomolecule attachment, surviv-
ability and proliferation, they must be surface modified using plasma to become more hydrophilic (wettable). Microtiter plates, for example, can be modified with hydroxyl, carboxyl or amine groups to render them hydrophilic and to introduce a neg- ative or positive charge. A common usage for microtiter plates is for
bio assays such as the enzyme-linked immunosor- bent assay (ELISA) used broadly for diagnostic testing. ELISA is used to detect the presences of a substance, usually an antigen, in a liquid sample. Performing an ELISA involves at least one
Plasma treatment can coat and treat labware, improving the quality of test results.
630.629.6646
www.matr.com
antibody with specificity for a particular antigen. The sample with an unknown amount of antigen is immobilized on a microtiter plate through adsorp- tion to the surface or is captured by another anti- body specific to the same antigen. After the antigen is immobilized, the detec- tion antibody is covalently linked to an enzyme or
Continued on next page The material matters in material handling
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