Dako Autostainer Plus - Manual (Page 54)

54 Dako Autostainer Plus | User Guide
Defining Primary Antibodies
Each primary antibody reagent is programmed individually and will appear in the PROGRAMMING
GRID with its programmed pretreatment (see Reagent Management, section 11). Primary
antibodies and/or pretreatments can be manual steps and are noted on the PROGRAMMING
GRID and printouts. If a reagent is a manual step, then that step is preformed before the slides are
loaded on the Autostainer Plus (i.e., overnight incubations, Target Retrieval, etc.).
NOTE: A primary antibody’s pretreatment will automatically appear with the primary antibody, only
if the protocol template contains a pretreatment protocol element (see Designing a Protocol,
section 9).
1. Enter slide information and select a protocol template as described previously (see
sections 8 and 9). The PROGRAMMING GRID is displayed listing the slides identified
during Slide Count or Slide Information entry. Add any detection reagents as described
above. When the first programmable Primary Antibody is highlighted (blinking), a list of
available Primary Antibodies for the step is displayed.
2. Select the desired antibody from the list using the UP and DOWN arrow keys on the
keyboard and press enter. The mouse pointer, the reagent list scroll bar or typing the first
letter of the antibody name will allow the user to navigate through the antibody list. The
selected antibody and its pretreatment will appear on the PROGRAMMING GRID.
NOTE: Pretreatments can be made a manual step (for more information on manual
steps, see Reagent Management, section 11) by positioning the mouse pointer over a
pretreatment, and pressing the right mouse button. To change the pretreatment back to a
step preformed on the Autostainer Plus, position the mouse pointer over the pretreatment
to be changed and press the left mouse button. The list of available pretreatments is
displayed. Select the desired pretreatment from the list.
3. Universal negative controls and previously assigned and saved matched negative
controls are listed at the end of the primary antibody list and can be accessed on the
keyboard by pressing the SHIFT key and typing “_”. Once the correct negative control is
selected, press ENTER and the selected negative reagent and pretreatment will appear
on the PROGRAMMING GRID.
4. After selecting NEXT, the PROGRAMMING GRID will be checked for missing rinses. If
there is a rinse missing between two reagents, a message will ask if you want to continue.
Select YES and a dialog box prompts “save the program on disk?” if the program is new,
otherwise the PRINT SLIDE LABELS window is displayed.
Select NO to return to the PROGRAMMING GRID and the missing rinse will appear on
the screen.
Assigning Positive and Negative Control Reagents
Positive and negative control reagents can be automatically added for each primary antibody that
is added to the Programming Grid. The controls will be added as new slides and will contain the
matching detection reagents of the test specimen.
1. Enter Slide Information and select a protocol template. A minimum of one slide must be
programmed through SLIDE COUNT or the SLIDE INFORMATION screen. Press OK or
the FINISH ENTRY button. The PROGRAMMING GRID is displayed.
2. Fill in the PROGRAMMING GRID columns with specific reagents for one slide. After the
primary antibody is applied, NEG.CTL and POS.CTL buttons will appear in the menu bar.
Continue entering the detection reagents from that slide.