Cell Culture Inserts

Features

Increase efficiency with BD multiwell insert systems

BD Biosciences multiwell insert systems with transparent membranes are designed to automate many commonly used membrane-based cell assays and increase the productivity and throughput of these assays in the drug discovery process. Users can handle 24 or 96-well inserts simultaneously as all inserts are part of a single unit. Cell culture inserts are available with a tissue-culture treated surface (BD Falcon™) and biological surface treatments (BD BioCoat™) including fibrillar collagen and fibronectin. These insert systems offer all the benefits of BD individual cell culture inserts in an automation-friendly format that is compatible with most robots and fluid handlers.

Features

  • Enables a broad range of assays including permeability studies for oral bioavailability and absorption studies (i.e., Caco-2 cells), chemotaxis and cell migration.
  • Increases productivity with automation friendly 24- and 96-Multiwell formats.
  • Provides a choice of pore sizes, receiver plates and feeder trays to meet the needs of many cell culture systems.
  • Enables reproducible data with consistent lot-to-lot protein coating.

Applications requiring protein-coated cell culture inserts

BD BioCoat™ cell culture inserts provide consistent coating of extracellular matrix proteins on tissue culture-treated cell culture inserts. For increased efficiency in screening compound transport and cell migration, BD provides pre-coated fibrillar collagen for Caco-2 transport assays and fibronectin for cell migration.

Multiwell plates for use with BD multiwell insert systems

All 24-multiwell insert systems are compatible with BD 24-well plates. These plates are suitable when individual basolateral compartments are needed for each insert, (i.e., transport, co-culture, migration or invasion assays). BD Gentest 24-well enhanced recovery plates are designed to work with BD Falcon 24-multiwell insert systems to enhance compound recovery, eliminate assay artifacts, avoid false negative conclusions and improve mass balance assessments in ADME studies. The BD Gentest 24-well enhanced recovery plates are treated with an exclusive hydrophilic, covalent coating to resist non-specific adsorption of lipophilic drug prospects.

BD Falcon 96-multiwell insert systems should be used with square well plates to prevent media wicking between the insert and well wall. BD Falcon 96-square well, angled bottom plate is designed for more complete sample utilization from the basolateral compartment. This is particularly important in transport-related applications, such as Caco-2 assays.

Single well plates for use with BD multiwell insert systems

BD Falcon single-well feeder trays provide excellent reproducibility with enhanced consistency in well-to-well monolayer growth when using BD 24- or 96-multiwell insert systems. Multiwell plates are needed for transport analysis.

Physical Specifications
24-Multiwell
96-Multiwell
Effective Diameter of Membrane (mm)
6.5
3.2
Effective Growth Area of Membrane (cm2)
0.3
0.0804
Insert Height (mm)
18
10.4
Distance from Membrane to Bottom of the Well (mm)
2.0
2.87 (high side inner)
4.27 (low side inner)
Suggested Media Volume in Insert (ml)
0.3-0.5
0.05-0.075
Suggested Media Volume in Well (ml)
1-1.4
0.26 (square well,
angled bottom plate)
Growth Area in Comparison TC Plate Well (cm2)
2.0
0.64

Product Selection Guide

Use the following chart to help you find multiwell cell culture inserts and surface chemistries available through BD Biosciences to meet your cell culture and application needs.

Vessel
Membrane Type
Pore Size
Plate Size
Tissue Culture
Fibrillar Collagen
Fibronectin
Phosphilipid
24-Multiwell,
Transparent
PET
1 µm
24-well
X
X
 
  
PET
3 µm
24-well
X
 
X
 
PET
8 µm
24-well
X
 
 
96-Multiwell,
Transparent
PET
1 µm
96-well
X
 
 
96-Multiwell
PVDF
0.4 µm
96-well
   
X
Membrane Type: PET: polyethylene terephathalate and PVDF: polyvinylidene fluoride