Bio-Rad Gene Pulser MXcell™ Electroporation System - Manual (Page 60)

Gene Pulser MXcell™ System Manual
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Appendix B: Troubleshooting
Follow these troubleshooting options:
1. Little or no transfection or cell viability.
• Check well sets. All wells in a well set must be filled with either sample or sample
buffer. For example, if you want to electroporate six wells, fill a complete well set
(such as ABCD1) with sample and fill two wells in a second well set (such as AB2)
with sample. Finally, be sure to fill the remaining two wells in the second well set
(such as CD2) with the sample buffer.
• Check capacitance (for Square wave form protocol). A square waveform may
require higher capacitance values. Use 2000 μf if you are experiencing no
transfection when using a square wave form protocol.
• Check sample volume. If you are working with the lower limit such as 100 μl in a
96-well plate, increase the sample volume. Increasing sample volume will tend to
increase cell viability and transfection efficiency.
2. Gene Pulser MXcell™ electroporation system stalls or hangs.
• Check sample volume. If your wells contain too little volume the Gene Pulser
MXcell electroporation system will not detect an arc. The instrument will stall and
will not produce a report. In this case, the Gene Pulser MXcell electroporator must
be reset by turning the unit off and on again.
NOTE: Before resetting the unit, determine at which well set the instrument
stalled. Failure to do so will result in loss of the data report once the Gene Pulser
MXcell is reset. All wells before the stall occurred should be correctly
electroporated, and all wells after the stall are not correctly electroporated.
• Check your settings. Arcing can occur when using upper limit settings. For
example, 3 pulses and duration (>20 ms) is one upper limit.