Question: What should I do if there’s extra silicone (flash) in the wells of my Tissue Slide Cassette or Visium Cassette?
Answer: Excess silicone (also called flash) can occur during injection molding of our Tissue Slide and Visium Cassettes. While some amount of flash is expected, excessive flash can negatively impact your Visium CytAssist Spatial Gene Expression experiment. Below we’ve provided example images of flash and guidance on what to do if observed in either your Tissue Slide or Visium Cassette.
Visium CytAssist Tissue Slide Cassettes:
- Prior to use, inspect the moveable gasket to ensure that the gasket perimeter and corners are free of excess silicone prior to assembly.
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If excess silicone is present, it should be safely removed with forceps or a pipette tip prior to cassette assembly.
- Failure to remove excess silicone may prevent adequate sealing of the wells, evaporation, or difficulty fully adding/removing reagents.
Examples of excess silicone on 6.5mm Gaskets are indicated with white arrows:
Please note that flash can occur on 6.5mm and 11mm Gaskets. A similar phenotype may be observed for 11mm Gaskets with excess silicone.
Visium Cassettes:
- Prior to use, inspect the exhaust channels and wells to ensure that they are free of excess silicone prior to assembly.
- If excess silicone is present, it should be safely removed with forceps or a pipette tip prior to cassette assembly.
- Failure to remove excess silicone from exhaust channels may prevent adequate venting of the cassette during heated incubation steps.
Examples of excess silicone on the exhaust channels (left) and within the Gaskets (right) are indicated with red circles:
Please note that flash can occur in or on 6.5 mm and 11mm Visium Slide Cassettes. A similar phenotype may be observed for 11 mm Visium Slides with excess silicone.
Below are stepwise images illustrating inspection and removal of flash (white arrows) from 6.5 mm Tissue Cassette Gasket:
Cassette inspection and flash removal should be performed similarly for 11mm Tissue Cassettes, 6.5mm Visium Cassettes, and 11mm Visium Cassettes.
Products: Visium CytAssist for FFPE, Visium CytAssist for FF, Visium CytAssist for FxF