Evenly distribute 100ul of cells in a 48/96 well - (Sep/05/2011 )

Hey guys! My group would be needing to evenly distribute 100ul of cells in either a 48 or 96 well plate. None of us are entirely sure how because...well, we're high school students. Also, how exactly do we measure 100ul? What particular instrument do we need?

Thanks a lot!


*It's our junior year which means research is a big deal. Expect a lot of basic questions from me.

Is that 100 ul of cells per well or over the whole plate?

There is some very simple maths involved, which I am sure you can work out, as to what volume you would need to add to each well, if it is the 100 ul over the whole plate.

Note that you may find it easier to dilute the cells and then aliquot them into the wells in a bigger volume.

Remember to mix your cells well before aliquotting to get an even distribution in the medium, and probably during the process too, as cells can settle quite fast. If you are working with bacteria, they won't settle so fast.

You will need a pipette of some sort to measure 100 ul - this could be a 1 ml or 0.5 ml standard glass/plastic pipette or you could use what is known as a micropipette (something similar to this -ask your teacher/lab technician), and some tips to fit on the end. These come in a range of volumes (usually 0.5-2 ul, 0.5-10 ul, 2-20 ul, 20-200 ul, 200-1000 ul), be careful to understand the range for each pipette, as they are not accurate outside of the recommended range.

Probably, the instrument you are looking for is called multichannel pipette. I would use a P200.