RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 PlasmoTron: an open-source platform for automated culture of malaria parasites
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 241596
DO 10.1101/241596
A1 Sanderson, Theo
A1 Rayner, Julian C.
YR 2018
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/02/20/241596.abstract
AB We have created a system which allows an inexpensive opensource liquid-handling robot to automate most aspects of bloodstage malaria parasite culture. Parasites are cultured in multiwell microplates, with their details recorded in a database. Information in the database is used to generate commands for the robot to feed, monitor and passage parasite cultures. We show that the system is capable of raising cultures after transfection and then maintaining them at desired parasitaemias, facilitiating significant scale up of both routine culture and experimental genetic modification. The PlasmoTron software is available at plasmotron.org.