FAQ

In most cases, yes, your cells will work with the system. Whether a cell is compatible or not is dependent on many things such as the size and fragility of the cells. Please contact our applications team for a detailed list of cells that have been trialed in our Nadia product family or µEncapsulator system.

The droplet junction size of the chip tends to dictate the size cells that can enter the system. We advise that cells are half the size of the junction, to avoid any sheering of cells and blockages. On the Nadia Instrument the maximum are cells of 50µm and on the µEncapsulator system a maximum of 25µm.

Yes. The Nadia Instrument and uEncapsulator system support volumes as small as 100µl.

Cells and beads are advised to be used at a concentration of 300 and 600 per µl, respectively.

Currently the most practical way of doing this is making small double emulsion droplets (an aqueous droplet in an oil shell, with an aqueous continuous phase), that can be sorted on a conventional FACS (https://www.dolomite-bio.com/applications/droplets-facs-sorting-libraries/).

To get this out, place the droplet chip on a hot plate with the gasket facing away from the metal surface at 90˚C for 5min, afterwards place the chip back into the µEncapsulator and continue with the cleaning protocol.

Yes, please see https://www.dolomite-bio.com/support/publications/ for current publications.

At present, we do not sell beads.

Yes, we sell the Picosurf™ range of products.

• Pico-Surf™ 1 (In Novec7500)- Great for PCR. Stable, chemically inert droplets for PCR.
• BioRad Droplet Generation Oil For EvaGreen – Suitable for RNA-Seq applications

• Pico-Surf 1 5% in Novec 7500 has been successfully used with:
• Mouse hybridoma
• CHO
• Human and Mouse B-cells
• Human T-cells
• Jurkat cells
• HEK
• 3T3
• Endometrium
• Annelid worm cells
• Yeast
• Plant cells such as corn
• Bacterial cells such as E.coli and streptomycetes
• Nuclei
• Genomic DNA

This is because different types of beads are used in each application. RNA-Seq requires beads which are barcoded and at present are a size of 20-40µm. These beads therefore only run in a droplet chip with a 100µm junction as available for the Nadia Instrument and the scRNA-seq modular system. B and T cell studies require beads which don’t have a barcode and therefore are a size of 1 - 10 µm, which are able to run in the uEncapsulator 30/50µm chip.

Typically, 20% larger or smaller than the junction size (this is achieved by varying the pump pressure/flow rate).

Typically 20% larger or smaller than the junction size (this is achieved by varying the pump pressure/flow rate).

Around a week at room temperature or two weeks at 4˚C.

No, the Dolomite Bio systems provide a solution for encapsulating single cells into droplets with/without beads. The protocol ends with a set of beads with mRNA attached, ready for downstream processing. If you are interested in data downstream of the encapsulation process please contact support@dolomite-bio.com.

Yes, the Nadia Instrument when combined with Nadia Innovate and the µEncapsulator system are fully flexible allowing the use of own reagents and the development of applications.

Yes

4000

0.05ms

We recommended 300 cells/ µl and 600 beads /µl, this reduces the chance of doublets of either a cells or beads. The system can be manipulated to higher concentrations to increase the chance of 1 bead and cell per droplet.

This is dependent on the concentration of the beads you are using, but when using our advised concentrations, the capture rate for cells is 10%. Meaning that 10% of the input cells will be captured, e.g. if you encapsulate 75,000 cells 7,500 will be captured for sequencing.

You can run either 1, 2, 4 or up to 8 samples in parallel in a 20min run.

Run parameters such as pressures, stirrer speeds and temperatures can be altered when combing the Nadia Instrument with Nadia Innovate. This unlocks the Nadia Instrument for different applications or the use of different buffer compositions for scRNA-seq.

This is due to the junction size of the µEncapsulator chips and the properties of the barcoded mRNA capture beads. The Nadia instrument uses a 100µm chip, and the beads mentioned in the Macosko et al paper. These beads vary in size between 20-40 µm, so are compatible with the Nadia chips as their size is able to flow through the junction. However, the µEncapsulator has a junction size of either 15µm, 30µm or 50µm. This means that the beads are the size of the largest junction size, and wouldn't flow through, without blocking.

250µl beads, 250µl cells and 3ml oil (for 20 min run and highest recommended flow rates).

Up to 48,000 single cell libraries in 20 minutes when using an 8-way cartridge on the Nadia instrument.

If you are looking to see the products live and running, we regularly run workshops in many countries around the world.

Keep up-to-date with workshops being run near you by visiting the Workshops page.

Yes, installation and training can be (and typically for all system purchases, will be) included in the quotation. Please check your quotation.

Installation and training involves a specialist from the Dolomite Bio team visiting your institute to firstly install (set up and test performance of) the system. It also includes dedicated training of you and your colleagues, where we can help you understand the system, how to set it up and give guidance on your application. This often proves essential for users who have not used a microfluidic platform or are unfamiliar with the application and its set up.

If you already have a quote, please email your purchase order to orders@blacktrace.com (Dolomite Bio is a brand of Blacktrace). If you would like a quote, please visit Request a Quote.

If you run into any problems with the system, please contact our support team at support@dolomite-bio.com

Nadia instrument and Nadia Innovate chips are consumables that are discarded after a run. The µencapsulator system uses glass chips, that when taken care of by using the cleaning protocol after every use, the chips can be reused many times.

The Nadia product family does not have wetted parts and therefore doesn't require cleaning. Chips are one time use and are therefore disposed of after every experiment.

Normally the chips and system are cleaned by flushing through with 1% detergent, 100% isopropanol and then air (to dry the system/chip). Contact support@Dolomite-bio.com for a detailed cleaning protocol.

We are able to advise you and produce system quotes on products if you are unsure of what you need to run your application. Please contact us.

Dolomite provides microfluidic components, such as pumps, chips and other accessories, which can be used for various different applications or function as microfluidic system solutions.

Dolomite Bio is focused on developing and selling products, typically complete systems and consumables to biologists. Many of these products are focussed on specific biological technologies such as Single Cell RNA Seq. Some of these products contain microfluidics but this is not the focus of Dolomite Bio.

Yes, vacancies are updated regularly on our Careers