I used to use optical 96 well plates from Ibidi and they had a protective film in the bottom that I would remove just before imaging.
I currently use a brand that doesn’t have that protective film. And because of that the bottom gets scratched.
Does anyone know what sort of plastic film ibidi or others use to protect the bottom of the plate ?
The idea being that maybe I could apply it to a new plate then remove it when necessary.
This is a bright field image of the awful scratches I have.
WoW! That is a lot of scratches, I’m not only curious about material, but also about how the plate is being handled. Usually the ‘skirt’ height of the plate is enough to keep the bottom from being scratched. One option might be to find a (different?) surface to put the plate on while working with it, if the work surface is the problem. Be sure to clean the surface first so its ‘sterile’. Any film I can think of will risk leaving a residue behind, presumably you can clean the bottom of the dish with isopropanol before imaging, but this is always a hassle. Do you need to use the dish you are using?
The problem with this plate is that the distance between the coverslip and the bench is 0.21mm which apparently is not sufficient to protect it.
In the case pictured above I had tissue culture cells in the wells and I had to make an immunofluorescence in the well which involves about 15 steps and every time the plate is moved around.
I have now solved the problem by 3D printing a skirt that holds the plate 3mm higher. I just put the plate in it as soon as I take it out of it protective sleeve and I remove the skirt when I need to put the plate on the microscope stage.
