- Transform your fluorometer into a super-sensitive TIRF biosensor
- Install/uninstall TIRF accessory in less than one minute
- Analyze sub-microliter amounts of solutions using low-volume fluidics
- Employ TIRF in combination with electrochemical, dielectrophoretic, electric field, and temperature control
TIRF Labs offers TIRF Flow System TA1004 as an accessory assembled on a sample compartment insert of a fluorometer of your choice. We support virtually all fluorometers, including Horiba Fluorolog and Fluoromax, PTI, ISS, Varian Eclipse, SLM AB-2, SLM 4800, 8100, Shimadzu, Perkin Elmer, Hitachi, and custom-built fluorometers. TA1004 system is supplied as a factory aligned accessory, which replaces standard 1-cm cuvette holder. It takes no time to install/uninstall TA1004 system.
The diagram shows simplified top view of TIRF Flow system installed at the sample compartment of typical fluorometer. TA1004 uses excitation light and emission channel of your fluorometer. Photos show TIRF Flow System TA1004 mounted on the sample compartment inserts of Horiba Fluorolog/Fluoromax and Hitachi fluorometers.
TIRF employs the phenomena of total internal reflection, which provides sub-micron surface selectivity. Only fluorophores that are located at the surface or in close proximity (~200 nm) to the surface are excited and fluoresce. TIRF does not excite the bulk of solution, thus efficiently reduces the background, which allows for super-sensitive detection – down to single molecules. In fact, due to the superior sensitivity and surface selectiviety TIRF has become a method of choice for single molecule detection.
No other technique exists that can monitor fluorescence lifetime, polarization, anisotropy decay, quenching, resonance energy transfer (FRET), recovery after photobleaching (FRAP), and correlation spectroscopy (FCS) in real-time.
TIRF flow system TA1004 can be driven by gravity flow, which is always by hand, or can be interfaced with digital fluidics SmartFlow TF1005, which transforms your fluorometer to a computer-controlled TIRF biosensor instrument. Electrochemical, dielectrophoretic, electric field,and temperature control subsystems for TIRF flow cell are available as options.
Chemically modified and bio-functionalized TIRF slides with reactive amine, epoxy, and other groups, biotinylated, streptavidin-, and polylysine-coated TIRF slides, and reagent kits for immobilization of biomolecules are available as consumables.
TIRF Applications include: Analysis of biomolecular interactions, monitoring real-time kinetics, dtermination of k-on and k-off rate constants and affinity constants, studies of protein-protein, protein-DNA interactions, and DNA hybridization, studies of surface supported membranes, nanoengineering, drug screening, leads optimization, bioassay development, and more …See TIRF Application Notes and request pdf reprints of our customers who have used TA1004 system for their studies.
