Agilent 4200 TapeStation Instrument / PerkinElmer LabChip GX Touch 24 / AATI Fragm

[Lmathew]

Looking for inputs on the "nucleic acid analyzers" for NGS studies. Our lab is planning to purchase either a Agilent 4200 TapeStation Instrument or PerkinElmer LabChip GX Touch 24 or AATI Fragment Analyzer automated CE system. We process anywhere from 1-15 genomic DNA or total RNA samples a day and occasionally upto 96 samples. I checked all three options and can't decide if one is better than the other. At the moment, we have an Agilent bioanalyzer and we are looking for something that does job faster with decent output while keeping the cost reasonable. Any suggestions? Thank you!

[keithsweatshirt]

Our lab upgraded from a 2200 Tapestation to the 4200 Tapestation.
For the most part, the machine is fine. It is simple to use and can process small and large numbers of samples with some good flexibility. But the machine loses connection often and has had several errors that stopped the machine in the middle of the run. Talking with tech support has not helped as they tend to say it is something we are doing. And their sales reps were not very forthright or honest with us when helping us decide on whether or not to upgrade. They lied right to us on several points and when we brought that up, we were ignored. Good times.
Overall, if I had known what I do now, I wouldn't want to deal with Agilent again.

[beki.renberg]

I need the same information

Have you been able to find any information on this? I am looking into the same issues. I have asked a few people who work in genomics cores and they all still use the Agilent Bioanalyzer. I need something that is more high-throughput but still give good results and keeps the cost per sample low. Please let me know what you have found out!!

[lmj]

We have the AATI Fragment Analyzer automated CE system. I have been mostly happy with it. One significant service issue in the 2 years we have had it.
You mentioned you want faster results. The AATI is not fast, we have the 12 capillary unit and it will take ~10 minutes hands on time to set up the run and then ~60 mins for each gel (12 samples) and then probably 5 mins to analyse the data. But it it definitely is high throughput and "fast" in terms of hands on time. So you can set up 3 x 96 plates to run (will take about 30 mins) and run over the weekend, come in on Monday all three plates run.

[chuanwu]

LabChip GX

Did anyone used this to quant their amplicon library? Is that reliable? Whether the results are consistent with that measured by qPCR? Thanks

[r.rosati]

We have a 4200 and a very proficient student of mine tried to use it (per Thermo protocol re. Bioanalyzer) to quantify RNAseq libraries, but this didn't prove very reliable; she'd get a very unbalanced number of reads when she mixed libraries in a chip. Quantifying the same samples via qPCR gave much more reliable results. I don't blame the 4200 per se, though; perhaps the issue was uneven fragment lengths by our part. Anyways, qPCR proved to be less affected by experimental variation and that's what we use now.

[chuanwu]

Thank you for letting me know that qPCR quant is more reliable.