DO Nanoparticles are the new hot thing in oxygen monitoring for shake flasks! Early users praise their accuracy and especially appreciate how easy they are to handle. But how do you actually work with these Nanoparticles? In this article, we walk you through the key handling steps.
Your DO Nanoparticles arrive pre-sterilized via beta-radiation and packed as a sterile, freeze-dried powder in little vials. Each vial is designed to become 500 µl of stock solution.
Getting started is simple: To create your 100× stock, add 500 µl of sterile, demineralized water to the vial. Give it a gentle mix, and your freshly rehydrated stock is ready to join you your upcoming experiments.
Once your stock is ready, it’s time to bring it into action. You simply have to add your 100× stock solution at a 1:100 dilution to your final cultivation, and you’re all set to monitor oxygen over the period of your cultivation. So, for a 20 mL culture you will need 200 µl of your stock solution. Of course, you’ll use your Multiparameter Sensor for the read out.
If you notice a faint greenish glow, don’t worry, it’s completely normal. In fact, it can even help you quickly spot which cultures contain the sensing Nanoparticles and which don’t. A little glow, a lot of insight, science with visual flair!
No fiddly gluing of spots. No precise sensor alignment. No worrying about things coming loose or abrasive mishaps. Just simple pipetting, and you’re ready to go. Fast, clean, and convenient—exactly the way handling should be.
Here’s a quick recap of the workflow:
Create your stock solution – add 500 µl of sterile, demineralized water to the freeze-dried vial.
Add to your culture – dilute 1:100 for your measurement.
Start measuring – and watch your experiments come alive!
But how does the measurement part work? Good question!
The secret lies in each Nanoparticle’s luminescent coating, which senses the amount of dissolved oxygen in your culture.
Here’s the science, simplified: Your Multiparameter Sensor shines a red-orange light onto the Nanoparticles. They respond by emitting light in the near-infrared region and here’s the clever part: Oxygen quenches this luminescence. The brighter—or dimmer—the glow, the less—or more—oxygen is present.
Your sensor picks up these subtle changes, measures the phase shift, and sends all the data straight to the DOTS Software. Oxygen monitoring, made effortless!
Once your experiment is done and you want to run offline analytics or separate your medium for other purposes, it’s time to part ways with the DO Nanoparticles. They have a size of approximately 200 nm, which means they behave similar to common microorganisms when it comes to separation.
You can remove them together with your cells using standard laboratory filtration (common sterile filters of 0.2 µm) or by spinning everything down and keeping the supernatant. In other words: When your cells go, the Nanoparticles happily tag along!
And that’s all there is to it! With just a few simple steps, your DO Nanoparticles are ready to help you monitor oxygen easily. No fuss, no hassle. Just fast, clean, and convenient science at your fingertips. So grab your vials, mix up your stock, and let the green glow guide your next experiment. Who knew oxygen monitoring could be this easy?