Expanding Our Sphere of Expertise

Our flagship instrument, Cyto-Mine®, has been revolutionizing antibody discovery and cell line development (CLD) by enabling scientists to isolate valuable cells with ease and speed. But what’s new? We’ve been hard at work, listening to the needs of our customers and the industry to bring you exciting advancements including new assays, applications, and, most notably, the second generation of Cyto-Mine®. 

Author: Jessica Hall

An overview of Cyto-Mine®: Our tool for biologics discovery and development

For those who may not be familiar, Cyto-Mine® is a microfluidics-based instrument that utilises picodroplet technology to perform single-cell analysis and single-cell dispensing into well plates of entire cell populations within just one working day!  

This automated, high-throughput, cost-effective system has dramatically accelerates workflows, allowing for faster processes in antibody discovery, cell line development and other areas of single-cell work. 

In practice, Cyto-Mine® has demonstrated its power by reducing timelines for traditional cell line development (CLD) processes by 2-3 months, from gene integration to stability testing. The system is compatible with a wide range of commonly used transfection reagents, making it a versatile addition to any workflow. With an in-built monoclonality assurance system, you can be confident in achieving monoclonal outputs with 98.99% accuracy. Additionally, Cyto-Mine® is gentle on cells, with outgrowth rates comparable to traditional limiting dilution cloning techniques. 

When it comes to antibody discovery, Cyto-Mine® has also proven a useful tool. With its high sensitivity and throughput, extremely rare single cells can be isolated from whole cell repertoires while maintaining cell viability. 

What’s New: Second generation Cyto-Mine®, assays & applications 

Building upon the success of the first generation, the second generation, called Cyto-Mine® Chroma, is the same instrument we all know and love but with the added feature of four lasers (an additionally three lasers from the 1st generation Cyto-Mine®), expanding its application range and multiplexing abilities. This upgrade means you can isolate valuable cells with even greater precision, speed, and ease. 

We’ve also made significant strides in developing new assays and applications to complement the upgraded instrument. Our current repertoire of assay kits (Cyto-Cellect® and Cyto-Cellect Plus®) exclusively cover Human IgG detection by means of FRET, but not for long!  

One exciting development is the Fc Fusion Assay which enables the detection of human Fc fusion antibodies at the single-cell level within Cyto-Mine®.  Sign up for our news to hear more about this exciting assay release happening in the near future.  

Alongside this, we are exploring multiplexing assays that open up even more possibilities for your research. This means you will be able to sort single cells not only for specificity or gene integration, but also to gather information on cell viability and titre simultaneously to enhance selection efficiency.  

Additionally, for applications that require extended cell incubation or extensive manipulation, our picodroplets are designed for long-term stability. This allows them to be kept offline and outside the Cyto-Mine with cells inside under stable conditions.  

Our new and improved procedure allows users to re-inject previously made picodroplets into the Cyto-Mine® for sorting and dispensing, further broadening it’s range of application.  

Stay tuned for more developments at Sphere Fluidics!