Which applications was the InsituPro designed for?
The InsituPro was designed to perform protocols for whole mount in situ hybridization and immunocytochemistry on small organisms and tissue samples. In general, most serial incubation and washing procedures involving up to two different temperatures can be automated.

What is the difference between the InsituPro and the upgraded InsituPro?
For the InsituPro, the organisms to be treated are placed in small columns with a filter frit at the bottom. In contrast, for the upgraded InsituPro, the specimens are housed in incubation baskets that are placed in a tray. Reagents are added to the columns by a pipetting robot and the specimens are immersed for any given time as specified in the method. For the InsituPro, solutions are purged through the frit and new reagents are then added as specified. For the upgrade, solutions are removed by pipetting. This allows much gentler handling of the specimens, and liquid recovery. For both, the specimens are arranged in a thermostated rack and can be heated to two temperatures between ambient and 80ºC.

Which steps of the protocol are automated?
The InsituPro automates every step from rehydration , proteinase K treatment, fixation, hybridization, post-hybridization, washing through to antibody incubation. Any subset of these as well as double labelling procedures can be programmed.

Which size organisms can be treated?
The InsituPro can be equipped with columns of 6, 10 and 14 mm diameter. Therefore the organism size can range from about 200 µm to 12 mm. The upgrade can be equipped with baskets of 5 and 10 mm diameter, allowing the upgrade to handle organisms up to 9 mm length.

How many organisms can be processed in one run?
INTAVIS supply thermostated rack kits with 30 (small, medium or large) or 96 small columns. Each column can be loaded with several organisms, depending on their size. For good results the embryos should not be stacked. For the upgrade, up to 30 small or medium specimens are possible.

Which organisms have been treated successfully?
There are well established protocols for Zebrafish, Medaka, Xenopus, Mouse, Chicken, Hydractinia and Arabidopsis. Customers have even processed organs of larger organisms and limbs with the InsituPro.To date, we have not encountered any manual protocol that could not be performed by the instrument.

Are the results comparable to manual protocols?
We have a number of reports from customers which show the same or even better staining quality. Difficulties reported by customers have usually been overcome after some method development.

Is it possible to use individual probes on each organism?
This is definitely possible and one of the essential features for screening applications. Probe carry-over is prevented by a thorough needle wash between individual additions.

Can the InsituPro be used for large scale screening experiments?
This is one of the predominant applications. As the InsituPro can process only up to 96 small specimens (in column configuration), the InsituPro VS is recommended for screening of bigger or more fragile specimens.

Can the InsituPro be used for plant samples?
Customers who tried the InsituPro on Arabidopsis root tips and buds have reported excellent results. As the instrument automates manual procedures, successful application can be expected if a manual procedure already works for the same specimen.