April 2009
Dear New User of Oryx,
Thank you for ordering Oryx, our automatic protein crystallization system.
Before we visit you to install the system, it would be helpful if you could
equip yourselves with the following items - part numbers and a list of suppliers
can be found at
http://www.douglas.co.uk/consumables.htm
PC with Windows Vista or XP with at least 1024 x 768
screen resolution, 512 MB RAM, CD ROM drive, and
if possible
a serial port.
If a serial port is not available Douglas Instruments can provide a USB to
serial adaptor.
About 2 meters of bench space. (It is helpful if the bench is quite
deep, around 80 cms, although this is not essential.)
Spare mains electricity socket
For Oryx4 and Oryx8: if you will be doing microbatch-under-oil
experiments you will need:
Light Paraffin Liquid (around 1 liter)
Silicone fluid 200/1cs (around 1 liter)
In addition, the following would be useful:
Regular 96-well microlitre plates (around 300 microlitres per well)
such as polypropylene plates by Matrix (catalogue # 4919
www.matrixtechcorp.com).
Protein load strips from
Abgene: "Strips of 8 Low Profile Tubes" catalogue # AB-0771
(Natural). We will supply 240 strips with the machine. Though these look like
ordinary PCR strips, they have a particularly low profile which allows the
Oryx to reach the bottom to load all protein provided.
A 12-channel pipette for filling reservoirs, such as Transferpette-12
(20-200µl) by Brand,
available from
www.lab3.co.uk.
Alternatively, for faster pipetting we recommend the
Liquidator96. This 96-channel manual pipetter will dispense to 96
reservoirs in one go.
Printer - for Oryx8 only.
Please prepare some proteins and screening solutions so that we can try
out the system during the installation. The ideal format for the screening
solutions is a deep-well plate (e.g. Abgene catalogue # AB-0932).
For Oryx8, please also prepare some proteins and buffers etc. for
optimization. Note that the protein, precipitants, buffers etc should be
as concentrated as possible. (If possible, the protein
concentration should be twice that used in vapor diffusion, and the
precipitants should be saturated.)
We look forward to installing your system.
Best regards,
Douglas Instruments
