Echo Acoustic Liquid Handling for Synthetic Biology

Advantages of the Echo Liquid Handler in Synthetic Biology

Compared to Tip-based Liquid Handlers

• Fast, tip-less and contact-free transfers from any well in the source plate to any well in the destination plate, enabling 10X faster assemblies 
• Reducing gene assembly reaction volumes up to 100X, enabling significant cost-savings, while improving assembly efficiency
• Decreasing reaction volumes for up to 100X cost-savings in next-gen sequencing (NGS) or colony qPCR validation steps
• Enabling complex optimization involved in TXTL or cell-free protein expression
• Setting up high-throughput colony arraying of transformed or transfected cells, up to 1536 colonies per plate

Echo Liquid Handler for Synthetic Biology

Echo acoustic liquid handling technology revolutionizes synthetic biology applications by using sound energy to enable highly accurate, fully automated, non-contact dispensing of fluids in nL to µL volumes. By reducing reaction volumes the Echo offers significant reagent costand time-savings while improving reaction efficiency.

How Does the Echo Move Liquids with Sound?

Using the proprietary Dynamic Fluid Analysis technology, the Echo determines fluid composition and height, and the power needed to eject a precise volume of fluid into the destination well. This analysis happens in milliseconds, enabling precise and accurate transfer of nanoliter droplets into an inverted destination microplate. The desired transfer volumes are achieved by rapidly transferring multiple droplets per second.

Transfers can be made from any well in the source to any well in the destination. The tip-less and contact-free technology of the Echo allows for miniaturization and automation of complex assays to dramatically reduce reagent cost and assembly time while improving data quality.

Acoustic droplet ejection - The transducer is positioned below the source microplate well and emits focused sound energy repeatably to the meniscus of the fluid to be transferred. A stream of 2.5 or 25 nL droplets (model dependent) is reliably ejected into a well of an inverted destination microplate

Miniaturization and Acceleration of DNA Assembly and Validation QC for Gene Synthesis

Since introduction of Echo Liquid Handlers in 2004 they have been an essential part of synthetic biology labs to enable better and faster workflows while reducing costs and waste in a wide range of applications. Some of these applications, such as complex and highthroughput gene assembly and cell-free protein expression, would not have been possible without the use of Echo Liquid Handlers.

DNA assembly using traditional tip-based liquid handlers requires reaction volumes of ~10–20 µL. The Echo Liquid Handler can reduce these volumes up to 100-fold for gene assembly and/or validation steps, while maintaining or even improving data quality and drastically reducing reagent costs. Moreover, the Echo offers up to 10X timesavings in different labs. The Echo 525, introduced in 2012, has enabled even faster throughput with its 25 nL dispense volume.

Images courtesy of George McArthur, Ansa Bio

Optimization and Rapid Processing of Cell-free Protein Expression Reactions with Miniaturization

Cell-free transcription-translation (TXTL) or cell-free protein expression systems are versatile platforms for production of recombinant proteins within synthetic biology. Because in vitro protein synthesis is decoupled from cellular functions, the experimental cycle time can be greatly reduced, while the application range is expanded. Using the Echo Liquid Handler in combination with the cell-free protein expression master mixes enables rapid gene and protein expression projects that require high-throughput processing, flexibility and reproducibility, in a low-cost manner.

The fast and any-well-to-any-well transfers of reagents and DNA pieces by the Echo allows for up to 10X faster reaction optimizations while lowering the reagent consumption and cost by at least 3-fold, compared to tip-based liquid handlers.

Echo Liquid Handlers

• 2.5 or 25 nL and above
• Gene assemblies
• Colony arraying
• Colony qPCR or NGS
• Simultaneous normalization and pooling
• Cell-free protein expression or TXTL

Biomek i-Series

• 0.5 µL – 5 mL
• Sample handling from tubes or plates
• Transformation or transfection
• Mini-preps
• Colony picking
• Functional assays

Echo Cherry Pick

• Worklist-driven transfers
• Gene assembly
• Normalization and pooling
• TXTL reaction setup

Echo Plate Reformat

• Simple, drag-and-design interface
• Setting up colony qPCR reactions
• Setting up NGS reactions
• Colony arraying