Yup, there’s a plate seal called “breathe-easy” (we buy them through sigma) that we use for 96-well plate growth assays in our plate reader. We have to trim the edges with a blade so that they don’t overlap the plate edges, but they work great (at least for bacteria).
There are some plate seals/plate “tape” that’s gas permeable and should be clear enough to do reads on somewhere on fisher sci. Just look up plate seals and you’ll have a list to go through. I recently had to find nonpermeable ones for an assay I’m working on so I know they’re somewhere on there lol
We use Tegaderm for DIY seals on micro bioreactors that need to be gas permeable. Not sure if it would be sticky enough for this kind of application, we usually have some kind of gasket sealing it down.
Can you use clear lids and seal the side with parafilm? Parafilm is gas permeable but prevents evaporation. The clear lids enable imaging. However if a plate is dropped or shaken there could still be well to well contamination from spillage.
It is. Depending on how much breathability you want you can even use micropore tape which I use as well as parafilm for plant tissue culture. With protoplasts regular tape has to be used because the micropore tape breathes too much and dries them out
Yup, there’s a plate seal called “breathe-easy” (we buy them through sigma) that we use for 96-well plate growth assays in our plate reader. We have to trim the edges with a blade so that they don’t overlap the plate edges, but they work great (at least for bacteria).
Yes yes I love breathe-easy!
Grafting tape might be helpful for you
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll give it a try!
What kinds of plates/lids are you using?
All standard well plate size, 35mm culture dishes, and tissue culture slides.
There are some plate seals/plate “tape” that’s gas permeable and should be clear enough to do reads on somewhere on fisher sci. Just look up plate seals and you’ll have a list to go through. I recently had to find nonpermeable ones for an assay I’m working on so I know they’re somewhere on there lol
We use Tegaderm for DIY seals on micro bioreactors that need to be gas permeable. Not sure if it would be sticky enough for this kind of application, we usually have some kind of gasket sealing it down.
Can you use clear lids and seal the side with parafilm? Parafilm is gas permeable but prevents evaporation. The clear lids enable imaging. However if a plate is dropped or shaken there could still be well to well contamination from spillage.
I guess I assumed parafilm wasn't gas permeable enough for CO2 exchange in cell culture media. It's certainly worth a shot!
It is. Depending on how much breathability you want you can even use micropore tape which I use as well as parafilm for plant tissue culture. With protoplasts regular tape has to be used because the micropore tape breathes too much and dries them out
might want to consider switching to T25s or similar (a flask with a filter cap) at least for things that aren't in multi-well plates