Bio-Rad EXQuest Spot Cutter - Manual (Page 39)

17. Click Begin/Resume to open the "Plates for Cut Run" dialog (see Section 8.9) and then enter the
plate name and barcode/plate ID in their respective fields. The plate barcode can be entered using a
barcode scanner or typed in. To reserve wells on a microplate, click the Edit button for the desired
microplate and click on individual wells to reserve them.
18. Press Done to open the "Load Plate on Cutter" dialog box (see Section 8.10). Locate the microplate
with the name and barcode/plate ID shown in the dialog and then scan or type in the barcode/plate
ID into the "Confirm barcode" field. If the "Confirm barcode" does not match the "Barcode", a
warning will pop-up that states there is a barcode mismatch. In this case, make sure that you have
the correct microplate and have entered the barcode correctly. Place the plate in the microplate rack
position identified by the green box, with well A1 located in the front left plate corner. Click Done to
proceed to the next plate or Prev to return to the previous plate. Click Finish to start the run.
19. If at any time the cut run needs to be paused or aborted, press Pause. This will cause the cut run to
pause after the current cut. To abort the run, click Cancel; to resume the run click Resume. After
aborting a run, it can be restarted by pressing Begin/Resume on the "Manual Excision Tool" screen
(see Step 17, above).
20. Optional. After a cut run is complete, you may use the Confirm cuts function to confirm that the cuts
have been made. This is generally not necessary due to the high cutting efficiency of the EXQuest ™
spot cutter.
• Microplate Imaging. If the gel image was acquired with the UV EPI light source, a pop-up box
will be displayed at the end of the run that gives you the option to acquire a confirmation image
of the microplates. Click Yes to acquire a microplate image (see Section 5.3.1 for more detail).
• Gel Imaging. When a run is finished, return to the Manual Excision Tool screen and click
Confirm cuts to take a gel confirmation image. This image can be used to determine if all the
selected spots have been cut from the gel (see Section 5.3.2 for more detail).
21. Press Save to save the gel image as well as the cut request list (Microsoft Excel formatted table).
This cut list can be imported back into the Manual Excision Tool for use when cutting additional gels
in the same set (see Section 5.2).
22. Click Close to exit the "Manual Excision Tool" screen.
5.2 IMPORTING A CUT LIST
The Import function is used to import spot coordinates from a tab delimited text file. These files can be
generated from previous Manual Excision Tool cut runs or from non-Bio-Rad image analysis software. You
may only import a cut request list if the current image does not currently have cut requests associated with
it. However, after you have imported a cut list, you can then add additional cuts to the image. To import a cut
list:
1. Set up a Manual Excision Tool cut run as described in Section 5.1 Steps 1–13.
2. Click Import to open the "Import Excision Coordinate List" dialog box.
MANUAL EXCISION TOOL
5-4