Bio-Rad Releases New Software for Its Automated Experion Electrophoresis System

Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., a multinational manufacturer and distributor of life science research and clinical diagnostic products, announced today the release of new software for Bio-Rad’s automated Experion™ electrophoresis system, which enables fast and high resolution results for protein, RNA, and DNA separations. The new software optimizes these processes by providing easy access to the setup, running, and data analysis functions of the system.

An important feature of the software is its RNA quality indicator (RQI), which standardizes sample integrity for microarray and quantitative real-time PCR analyses with a one to 10 ranking. The method works well over a wide range of RNA concentrations, is reproducible, and is applicable to a wide range of mammalian tissues. With the new software, researchers can quantitatively assess the integrity of RNA samples before embarking on labor-intensive and costly projects.

Other key features of the software include:

• A user friendly graphical interface
• Manual peak integration
• Easy-to-find run files that enable chronological storage, sorting, and retrieval of run data with the logical and flexible, tree-view browser
• The ability to tag and label electropherograms by simply using a right click of the mouse
• Customized reports
• Results that can be exported as spreadsheets, text, and XML
• Compatibility with Microsoft^® Windows^® Vista operating system

Benefits users can expect from the Experion software include automatic calculations of size, concentration, and percent of total sample for each peak or fragment. Using the new software, users also have the ability to calculate relevant statistics such as mean, standard deviation, and %CV for measuring reproducibility. Self-training tools are available with the software. A "help" function provides a "Getting Started" video as well as relevant technical bulletins.

More information about this feature is described in a downloadable technical note from (bulletin 5761) Bio-Rad’s website accessed via the company article page.