Two color Elispot analysis can be performed using precipitating substrates that have non-overlapping color spectra in visible/white light illumination (without involving fluorescence). Learn more (links to Link 9)

Enabled by the BioSpot™ software, these readers can distinguish and count independently objects/colonies of up to 12 different colors as visible under white light illumination.

Mechanical zoom lenses enable flexibility in well formats. Zoom lenses configured towards microscopic magnifications enable imaging of single cells as required, e.g., for live/dead cell counting, or the detection of immuno-stained infected cells.

(Link to Page 16. High throughput solutions). Automated, plate loading solutions are optional upgrades for CTL readers. Stackers enable scanning and counting up to 30 plates in a run (link to stacker page), while with our robotic arm solution up to 500 plates can be analyzed in a single run (link to robot page).

CTL Readers are frequently run in BSL 3 and even BSL-4 environments. These instruments’ skin and interior has been designed to withstand and facilitate disinfection.

ImmunoSpot® Single-Color ELISPOT Enzymatic Software Suite

Rigorous experimental validation of its counting accuracy lies at the core of this software (link to Wiki Page 21). It enables “single click of a button counting” with 25 years of leading scientific expertise in ELISPOT analysis counting for you, or, in expert mode, this software enables scientists to do high content analysis of spot morphologies, for example, to establish affinity distributions of antigen-specific B cell ELISPOTs. CFR Part 11 compliant QC and audit trails support transparent ELISPOT counting in a regulated environment.

ImmunoSpot® Double-Color Enzymatic Software Suite

Two color Elispot analysis can be performed using precipitating substrates that have non-overlapping color spectra in visible/white light illumination (without involving fluorescence). The ImmunoSpot® Double Color Enzymatic Software Suite permits precise counting of single color positive spots for either analyte, as well as those that are double color positive, that is, co-express the two analytes (Ref – link to https://doi.org/10.4049/jimmunol.164.4.1862 ). CTL offers a wide selection of double color enzymatic ELISPOT kits enabling such dual color enzymatic ELISPOT analysis (Link to DC kit page).

Colony counting with the BioSpot™ Software Suite

Immune monitoring efforts frequently involve measuring serum antibodies' efficacy in neutralizing viruses, bacteria or toxins. ImmunoSpot® readers fully support such high throughput measurements, including colony counting. Each type of colony, however, viral plaques as an extreme, have unique morphologies that to recognize requires unique analysis solutions. The BioSpot™ Software Suite has been established to meet this challenge. The BioSpot™ software can distinguish and count independently objects/colonies of up to 12 different colors as visible under white light illumination.

CFR Part 11 compliant QC and audit trails support transparent colony counting in a regulated environment.

CTL’s philosophy is to offer instruments that support several functions commonly performed in immune monitoring laboratories. Enabled by the BioSpot™ Software Suite, ImmunoSpot® Readers are rendered high-end colony counters.

To view the full spectrum of assays that can be analysed with the BioSpot™ Software, follow this link please (links to Page 29 of Wiki)

The SpotMap™ Software Suite

High throughput analysis is streamlined by the SpotMap™ Software Suite. In the assay planning phase, plate layouts are established, and barcodes are generated for each plate. This permits to link the counts for groups of wells (e.g. triplicates) to the assay parameters for those wells for automated statistical analysis and import into standard databases. With SpotMap™ complex assays can be evaluated “at a click of a button”.

Image Annotator™ Tool

The Image Annotator™ facilitates analysis-oriented exchange between scientists themselves, or scientists and software developers. Regions of interst on a well image are marked and annotated. This information along with the raw image and the counting parameters are bundled to be passed on for discussion or consultation.

The SpotStat® Software Suite

The SpotStat® software suite was developed for the statistical analysis of ELISPOT/Fluorospot data in immune monitoring, vaccine testing and other fields of immunological and medical research.  SpotStat® implements a number of powerful parametric and non-parametric statistical methods for easy, streamlined analysis of data generated by CTL ImmunoSpot® platform.   The primary function of SpotStat® is to provide statistically-validated discrimination between antigen-induced responses and negative controls.  In more complex analysis, it is also capable of performing multiple comparison tests when multiple positive responses (like peptides testing in T cell assays) are compared to a single negative control for the same subject.  More than just providing data output, SpotStat® also offers a set of “descriptive statistics” methods including three tests for data normality. These tests are performed on each entered set of data and allows users to choose between parametric or non-parametric methods for final data interpretation and decision-making.  Results of all statistical tests are exported in Excel®, facilitating further data analysis and graphical outputs.

The Reagent Tracker™ Suite

The Reagent Tracker™ Suite provides audit trails for the accurate implementation of ELISPOT/FlouroSpot assays, revealing pipetting errors made (https://doi.org/10.3390/cells7010003.) Neutral dyes are used to colour different antigens and the Reagent Tracker™ Software checks, and provides a report, whether the right antigen/colour has indeed been plated in each assigned well (revealing qualitative pipetting errors), and whether the antigen is present in the right volume (revealing quantitative pipetting errors). The Reagent Tracker™ Suite is also ideally suited for proficiency testing of lab personnel, and for training of novices in the lab.

CTL has been committed to elevating ELISPOT/FluoroSpot assays so they can meet regulatory requirements for transparency and audit trails. The Reagent Tracker™ Suite is one of the important steps in that direction.

The ImmunoQualify™ Tool

The ImmunoQualify™ Tool permits to verify the ImmunoSpot® Reader’s accurate functioning before each use, or periodically. At the “press of a button”, a Reference Plate is scanned, and the newly established counts are compared to the factory-established reference counts for that plate, generating a pass/fail report.

ImmunoCompliance™ Suites

CTL instruments are equipped with selectable top and bottom white light sources, permitting the optimization of well illumination for different assay formats.

Most fluorochromes have overlapping spectra. ImmunoSpot Readers are designed such that select fluorochromes can be detected without cross-bleeding of color, thus permitting unambiguous identification of each analyte, as well as of analyte co-expressing cells. For no extra charge, we customize excitation/emission filters to specific needs.

The accurate counting of live cells in PBMC is essential for adjusting the cell numbers to be plated into an ELISPOT/FluoroSpot assay, with live cell counts representing the largest variable for the inter-assay reproducibility of spot counts. The proportion of dead and apoptotic cells present in a sample provide information on the PBMC’s fitness. Unless using a dedicated instrument for live, dead, and apoptotic cell counting, this is a time-consuming process, rate limiting for testing of multiple PBMC samples in an experiment. Enabled by CTL’s live/dead/apoptotic (LDA) Cell Counting Suite (link to 21) ImmunoSpot® Readers can count up to 96 PBMC samples in just minutes, automatically calculating resuspension volumes as part of a concise report.

CTL’s philosophy is to offer instruments that support several functions commonly performed in immune monitoring laboratories. Enabled by the LDA Suite, ImmunoSpot® Readers are rendered a high-end cell counter, saving our customers the expense of having to purchase and service a dedicated cell counter, all included in the cost of a single instrument.

LDA Cell Counting Suite

This software suite enables high-throughput live/dead/apoptotic (LDA) cell counting with suitable ImmunoSpot® Readers. Flourescent dyes with non-overlapping color spectra are used for viability staining. Counting 96 PBMC samples takes just minutes including automatic calculations of resuspension volumes and generation of a concise report. CFR Part 11 compliant QC and audit trails support cell counting in a regulated environment.

CTL’s philosophy is to offer instruments that support several functions commonly performed in immune monitoring laboratories. Enabled by the LDA Suite, ImmunoSpot® Readers are rendered a high-end cell counter, saving our customers the expense of having to purchase and service a dedicated cell counter, all included in the cost of a single instrument.

Select ImmunoSpot® Readers are suited to measure the lysis of fluorescence-labelled target cells in a 96-well format. Such target cell visualization assays (TVA) are commonly used for measuring natural killer- (NK) cell-mediated cytotoxicity or of antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) (https://doi.org/10.3390/cells7050035 ). Enabled by CTL’s TVA Software suite (link to 22), such ImmunoSpot® Readers provide the results about 10x faster and streamlined than the fastest flow cytometers could.

Measuring cell-mediated cytotoxicity is part of the assay repertoire of most laboratories involved in immune monitoring efforts. CTL’s philosophy is to offer instruments that support several functions commonly performed in immune monitoring laboratories. Enabled by the LDA Suite, ImmunoSpot® instruments are rendered a high-end cytotoxicity reader, saving our customers the expense of having to purchase a dedicated instrument, all included in the cost of a single device.

TVA™ Suite

The Target cell Visualization Assay (TVA™) Suite is a high-throughput cell counting application that is designed to measure the lysis of fluorescence-labelled target cells in a 96-well format. The TVA-Suite enables streamlined work flow from planning the experiment to automated generation of graphs CFR Part 11 compliant audit trails support cell counting in a regulated environment.

Enabled by CTL’s ELISA Software Suite (link to 25), fluorescence-capable ImmunoSpot® Instruments are capable of reading ELISA results with a sensitivity equal to high end dedicated ELISA readers.

CTL’s philosophy is to offer instruments that support several functions commonly performed in immune monitoring laboratories. Enabled by CTL’s ELISA Software Suite Enabled by the LDA Suite, ImmunoSpot® instruments are rendered a high-end ELISA reader, saving our customers the expense of having to purchase a dedicated instrument, all included in the cost of a single device.

CTL’s ELISA Software Suite

CTL’s ELISA Software Suite permits to perform ELISA measurements on ImmunoSpot® instruments. The work flow is streamlined from planning the plate lay-out to automated generation of the graphs, and the statistical analysis of the results. CFR Part 11 compliant QC and audit trails support cell counting in a regulated environment.

Modular design. Select ImmunoSpot® Readers have been engineered so that the number of narrow-band excitation light sources, cubes and filters can be modified and extended to accommodate special customer needs and an increase of analysis planes (number of colours). In this way, customers have the flexibility to adjust to future needs.

An integrated keyboard tray and monitor permit to limit the foot print to the analyzer proper, without requiring double that bench space for the monitor and keyboard to be set up next to the analyzer.

FluoroX™: Multicolor FluoroSpot Analysis Suite

For the individual colour planes, FluoroX™ follows the same rules for the scientifically validated identification of spots (link to Wiki Page 21) as does the single colour ImmunoSpot™ Software. Rigorous experimental validation showed, however, that for the identification of multi-analyte positive spots (generated e.g. by cytokine co-expressing T cells) simple center of mass overlap algorithms are NOT suited (https://link.springer.com/protocol/10.1007/978-1-4939-8567-8_9 ). Instead, Center of Mass Distance Algorithms need to be used, and are used by FluoroX, to accurately identify cytokine co-expressing individual T cells compensating for cell movements and fluorescent Stokes shifts (https://link.springer.com/protocol/10.1007/978-1-4939-8567-8_9 ). (we need to get copyright and create link to the full article). CFR Part 11 compliant QC and audit trails support transparent colony counting in a regulated environment.

Two color Elispot analysis can be performed using precipitating substrates that have non-overlapping color spectra in visible/white light illumination (without involving fluorescence). Learn more (links to Link 9)

Colony counting with the BioSpot™ Software Suite

Immune monitoring efforts frequently involve measuring serum antibodies' efficacy in neutralizing viruses, bacteria or toxins. ImmunoSpot® readers fully support such high throughput measurements, including colony counting. Each type of colony, however, viral plaques as an extreme, have unique morphologies that to recognize requires unique analysis solutions. The BioSpot™ Software Suite has been established to meet this challenge. The BioSpot™ software can distinguish and count independently objects/colonies of up to 12 different colors as visible under white light illumination.

CFR Part 11 compliant QC and audit trails support transparent colony counting in a regulated environment.

CTL’s philosophy is to offer instruments that support several functions commonly performed in immune monitoring laboratories. Enabled by the BioSpot™ Software Suite, ImmunoSpot® Readers are rendered high-end colony counters.

To view the full spectrum of assays that can be analysed with the BioSpot™ Software, follow this link please (links to Page 29 of Wiki)

Most fluorochromes have overlapping spectra. ImmunoSpot Readers are designed such that select fluorochromes can be detected without cross-bleeding of color, thus permitting unambiguous identification of each analyte, as well as of analyte co-expressing cells. For no extra charge, we customize excitation/emission filters to specific needs.