Accelerating the development of novel transfection agents

Privately held biotech company Synvolux Therapeutics B.V. (Groningen, The Netherlands) is using a Guava EasyCyte™ Plus™ System from Guava Technologies Inc. to help accelerate the development of novel transfection agents using its proprietary SAINT technology.

Using the Guava EasyCyte™ Plus™ System and the Guava Viacount® Cell Counting and Viability Assay, Synvolux has been able to determine the expression level of transfected plasmid DNA, or the down regulation induced by transfected siRNA and in this way test the designed features introduced by performing cell transfections. The Guava EasyCyte™ Plus™ System has enabled Synvolux to increase the throughput of samples run and to reduce the number of cells required per assay compared to using traditional flow cytometry methods.

Synvolux Therapeutics B.V. is a company dedicated to the development, production and commercialisation of new therapies using its SAINT technology: a unique, safe and highly efficacious delivery technology for macromolecules (DNA, RNA, proteins and others). SAINT (Synthetic, Amphiphilic, INTeractive) technology, is based on a universal, highly developed platform of 100% synthetic delivery agents which display very high efficiencies with DNA, RNA (also siRNA), proteins and biopixels. Synvolux's patent portfolio covers more than 2 million chemical structures. Using proprietary linker technology and specific interacting agents the company is able to anticipate specific intracellular delivery of these macromolecules. Synvolux' compounds promise to improve the potential of DNA mediated therapy, circumventing the dangers of viral delivery and the inefficiency of other approaches.

Dr Marcel Ruiters, CEO and CSO Scientist at Synvolux said, "The Guava EasyCyte™ Plus ™ System meets all our needs in a very compact, multi-colour detection cytometer which offers high throughput analysis where required". He added " Prior to implementing the Guava Technologies system, our cellular analysis tasks were performed externally on a FACS flow cytometer. The disadvantages of this approach were the dependence on our external service provider, the costs, the longer time to obtain results, and the amount of cells that had to be used on the FACS". "The Guava EasyCyte™ Plus™ System has enabled us to increase the number of experiments we run each day and to reduce the number of cells per experiment". "With its built-in 96-well sample tray feature the EasyCyte™ Plus is easy to use and more samples can be run at higher throughput. This frees researchers to perform other tasks further increasing laboratory productivity". "Furthermore the software provides many new data acquisitions and analysis tools which our research analysts have found very easy to set up and use". " Future developments of our use of the Guava EasyCyte™ Plus™ System include using the Guava^® Cell Tracking Reagent Kit to quantitate transfection efficiency in mixed cell systems and using the Guava^® Cell Growth Reagent Kit to develop an easy to perform assay for the measurement of reduced cell growth in cancerous cells".

The Guava EasyCyte™ Plus™ System combines ease of use, affordability and 96-well high throughput screening with the expanded capabilities of a fourth colour option. The unique, built-in 96-well sample tray feature also accommodates an additional 10 sample tubes, providing added flexibility for varying throughput needs. Simultaneous four-colour fluorescence detection greatly expands the results obtainable from any one well, simplifying simultaneous monitoring of more complex biological studies such as white blood cell phenotyping, cell signaling, cytokine production, activation marker analysis, and multiplex compound screening. Easy integration with third party plate handlers makes high throughput flow cytometry a reality. Unlike other flow cytometers the Guava EasyCyte™ Plus™ System provides both absolute cell counts and population percentages, allowing you to monitor for changes in overall cell number, which could affect your assay. The Guava EasyCyte™ Plus™ System runs all of Guava Technologies's turnkey assays, including antigen detection, cell counts / viability, cell cycle, cell proliferation, cytotoxicity, apoptosis, and more.