Orbit 16 TC - Taking the Pain out of Painting

Nanion's Orbit 16 TC platform takes the pain out of bilayer painting and subsequent recordings as it enables fast and successful data generation thanks to the rapid automated formation of 16 bilayers at once and their subsequent fully parallel recording. The benefits the Orbit 16 TC offers include:

Automated formation of 16 artificial lipid bilayers at the push of a button
Fully parallel low noise, high bandwidth recordings
Substantial data generation due to 16 simultaneous recordings
Automated temperature control
Temperature range freely definable between 5-50°C
Dedicated comprehensive recording software included
Target molecules can be introduced directly or by fusion of (proteo-)liposomes
Ion channels: voltage and ligand gated, temperature sensitive
Nanopores, antimicrobial peptides, toxins and many more...
Cost-efficient experiments with disposable MECA 16 TC chips

The Orbit 16 TC is equipped with a dedicated low-noise 16 channel amplifier (Elements S.R.L.) enabling the convenient fully parallel recording of 16 bilayers at highest bandwidths and supreme signal to noise ratios.

The Orbit 16 TC bilayer platform

An Orbit 16 TC setup consists of the main recording station, an integrated Elements e16n bilayer amplifier, a temperature control system and a dedicated workstation.

For detailed information:

Software

Orbit 16 TC EDR4 Software

eFOUR Software

The intuative and easy to learn EDR4 software for the Orbit 16 TC was developed by our partner Elements S.R.L.(Italy). Further detailed information can be found at https://elements-ic.com/

Consumables

MECA 16 TC chips

The MECA 16 TC recording substrate contains an array of 16 circular microcavities in a highly inert polymer. Each cavity contains an individual integrated Ag/AgCl-microelectrode. The bilayer is automatically formed by remotely actuated painting (Ionera1-SPREAD), thus roofing the liquid-filled cavity. The bilayers can be easily and repeatedly zapped and re-formed in an automated fashion. After bilayer formation, ion channels or nanopores are reconstituted via self-insertion, proteoliposome fusion or dilution from detergent micelles.

The MECA 16 TC recording chips are produced and quality assured by our partner Ionera Technologies GmbH in Freiburg Germany and shipped from Munich to our international customers. Different types of MECA 16 chips will be available depending on the sample.

Orbit 16 Meca Chip

Available chip types

"MECA 16 TC Recording Chips 100 µm": 16-well recording chip with 100 µm cavity size (Order # 131013)

Testimonials & Case Studies

Prof. Dr. Friedrich Simmel - Statement about the Orbit 16

Icon Orbit “The Orbit 16 enables us to generate high quality, single channel recordings with synthetic DNA membrane channels, which in our experience are notoriously difficult to measure. DNA pores are quite hard to functionally incorporate into lipid bilayers, but could be successfully investigated using the Orbit 16, as published in Science. The Orbit 16 offers a drastic increase in throughput since it substantially speeds up formation of bilayers and data generation by its parallel recording channels, thus providing us an easy-to-use platform for efficient and accurate research on DNA nanodevice-membrane interactions.”

Dr. Friedrich Simmel, Professor, Systems Biophysics and Bionanotechnology, Physics Department and ZNN/WSI
Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

Prof. Dr. Stefan Howorka - Statement about the Orbit 16

Icon Orbit “Within our research on the CsgG channel, Nanion’s Orbit 16 - combined with Ionera's MECA Chip technology - has substantially boosted our scientific output. The outstanding research tool is easy to handle and speeds up the parallel generation of 16 bilayers. By increasing the throughput of single-channel current recordings, it is a breakthrough in the biophysical analysis of pore forming proteins. Within approximately one week’s worth of lab time, we had the data needed for the recent paper in Nature. This would have been hard to achieve using conventional serial bilayer methods. In addition, the ease-of-use provided by the Orbit 16 shortens the learning curve for making high quality bilayer recordings. As a benefit in academia, students can now get hands-on experience with bilayer recordings also for shorter projects.“

Dr. Stefan Howorka, Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology
University College London, London, UK

Data and Applications

Alpha-Hemolysin - Parallel Recordings of monoPEG-28 Block

Icon Orbit Orbit 16 data and applications:
Data courtesy of Dr. Gerhard Baaken et. al., University of Freiburg / Ionera.

Event-averaged histograms (black) and overlaid current traces (blue) of parallel and simultaneous recordings on a MECA chip of monoPEG-28-mediated blockages of hemolysin nanopore(s). The current traces were recorded with a multichannel amplifier (Tecella Jet 16). Histograms were derived from the mean current levels of at least 2000 visits of blocked stated per cavity (20 kHz sample frequency).
Read the full paper. (Am. Chem. Soc Nano, 5(10), 8080-8088, 2011)

Alpha-Hemolysin - Block by Mono- and Poly PEGs

Icon Orbit Orbit 16 data and applications:
Data courtesy of Dr. Gerhard Baaken et.al, University of Freiburg / Ionera.

Current traces and histograms derived from recordings of αHL pores blocked by monoPEG-28 and polyPEG-1500 on an Ionera MECA chip (AxoPatch 200B, filter freq: 20kHz, digitized at 200 kHz).
Read the full paper: (Am. Chem. Soc Nano, 5(10), 8080-8088, 2011)

Alamethicin - Parallel recordings

Icon Orbit Orbit 16 data and applications:
Data courtesy of Dr. Gerhard Baaken, University of Freiburg / Ionera.

The data image shows parallel recordings from reconstituted alamethicin channels. See also the paper: "Alamethicin Supramolecular Organization in Lipid Membranes from ¹⁹F Solid-State NMR", Salnikov et al. (2016) Biophysical Journal 111(11): 2450-2459.