The RISA inoculator. (A) Photograph of RISA inoculator. (B) Schematic representation of RISA inoculator. (C) Movable 96-channel auto-dispenser at medium-dispensing site. (D) Movable 96 pins for clone inoculation at inoculation site. In B, 384-well plates and deep-well plates are supplied on 384-well plate trays (RT) and 96-format deep-well plate trays (DT) at the respective stackers [(SS1) RT stacker; (DS1) DT stacker], and conveyed on the respective lines [(SL) RT line; (DL) DT line]. A total of 8 DTs and 10 RTs can be piled up on SS1 and DS1, respectively. Medium is dispensed at the medium-dispensing site (MD) by a movable 96-channel autodispenser (C). The autodispenser transfers an appropriate volume of medium at the medium bath (M) to the deep-well plate. For the inoculation, the movable 96-pin array (D) is first washed in ethanol bath (Et), and dried by an air dryer (Dr). The 96-pin array then moves to SL of the inoculation site (IN), picks clones from the 384-well plate, and inoculates in deep-well plate at DL of IN. In subset manipulation, the A-subset clones (for the definition of A, B, C, and D subsets, see Methods) of the 384-well plate at position 1 on the tray at the SS2 site are inoculated in the deep-well plate at position A on the tray at DS2. In the same way, B, C, and D subsets of the same 384-well plate are inoculated in the deep-well plates at positions B, C, and D, respectively. The subsets of the next well plate are at position 2; these subsets are inoculated into the plates at positions E, F, G, and H. In this way, all well plates are manipulated sequentially, being transported by belt conveyer. The manipulated trays are then piled up at DS3 and SS3. At positions IN of SL and DL, barcode readers detect the 384-well plate and deep-well plate IDs.
