Many Bandit Biosystems product pages and product information sheets include a tube and dye layout. It is the quickest way to see how a panel is built and how to set up a run.
Tubes and channels
- A tube is one reaction. Each primer and probe mix runs as its own reaction, in its own well.
- A dye is one channel. Each target in a tube carries a probe labeled with a different fluorophore, such as FAM, HEX, Cy5 or ROX, so the instrument can read them separately.
- One target per channel per tube. A four-dye tube detects up to four targets at once. A panel with more targets uses more tubes.
A worked example
The Canine Enteric Pathogen qPCR Panel detects 14 targets in four tubes: 13 pathogen targets plus the SPRY1 internal control.
| Tube | FAM | HEX | Cy5 | ROX |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tube 1 | C. difficile toxin A/B | C. perfringens CPE | C. perfringens CPA | C. perfringens NetE/NetF |
| Tube 2 | SPRY1 control | Canine circovirus | Canine distemper virus | Canine enteric coronavirus |
| Tube 3 | SPRY1 control | Salmonella spp. | Cryptosporidium spp. | Campylobacter (jejuni and coli) |
| Tube 4 | SPRY1 control | Giardia spp. | Canine parvovirus | Lawsonia intracellularis |
Read each row as one well. In tube 2, for example, a signal in HEX means canine circovirus, and a signal in FAM means the internal control amplified.
Things to notice
- Internal controls take a channel. The SPRY1 control appears in three of the four tubes, so those tubes carry three pathogen targets each. Our target counts include internal controls, so this panel is listed as 14 targets.
- Some channels report a group. An entry such as "C. difficile toxin A/B" or "Salmonella spp." reports more than one gene or species in a single channel. The product page lists exactly what each channel covers.
- Dye substitutions. HEX can be read as VIC or JOE on instruments without a HEX channel.
When planning a run, multiply the tube count by the number of samples and controls to get the number of wells you need. For a custom layout, try our panel designer.