MagPlex® Monitoring Microspheres Let xMAP® Users Take Troubleshooting into Their Own Hands

Monitoring beads help users troubleshoot unexpected median fluorescent intensity patterns and weak signals, providing added confidence in your assay results

We’re excited to announce the availability of our new MagPlex® Monitoring Microspheres. Designed for assay design and development, these monitoring aids make it possible for customers to monitor reporter values and reporter channel performance well-by-well.

“It’s very handy to have these beads in the reaction so if a problem does arise, you can quickly identify whether it’s on the instrument or the assay side,” says Stephen Angeloni, PhD, Senior Field Application Scientist at Luminex. “They’re useful for quality control in an assay.”

Before these beads became a commercially available product, Dr. Angeloni used them to help customers who were having technical challenges with their assays, such as weak signals or unexpected fluorescence patterns. Adding monitoring beads made it easier to troubleshoot the cause of those issues.

Since using the monitoring beads, Dr. Angeloni has helped customers identify some common culprits of assay issues, including degraded reagents, forgotten detection reagents, and reagents that were pipetted in the wrong amount. When these types of issues arise, being able to pinpoint which one is the cause behind an assay that just isn’t working optimally can save researchers a lot of time.

A glimpse into the beads

The beads are magnetic polystyrene microspheres that have been color-coded to classify to a specific region while providing reporter MFI values specific to instrument type and reporter modes. The reporter dyes are inside the beads rather than on the surface, so there is no modification necessary to use them in the regular xMAP workflow. They can simply be combined with the other beads needed for an assay.

MagPlex Monitoring Microspheres require the use of xPONENT® or INTELLIFLEX software, and two products are available depending on the reporter channel being monitored:

  • RP1 Monitor beads (region 45), which are compatible with all xMAP instruments, including the MAGPIX®, Luminex® 200™, FLEXMAP 3D®, xMAP® INTELLIFLEX, and xMAP INTELLIFLEX DR-SE systems.
  • RP2 Monitor beads (region 222), which are only compatible with the INTELLIFLEX DR-SE System.

We’re constantly impressed by the different ways our customers use our products to meet their unique needs, and we’re committed to developing solutions that optimize the xMAP Technology experience, like these new microspheres. To learn more about them, take a look at our website, or download a flyer with more information.

Learn more about MagPlex Monitoring Microsphere here.

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

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