Dual robotic arm "production line" mass spectrometry assay guided by multiple Arduino-type microcontrollers

Abstract

Chemistry-related procedures often involve a substantial investment of manual work. Automated procedures have been developed to reduce the burden of sample processing and analysis. Here, we demonstrate an automated system for sequential sample processing and delivery to a mass spectrometer. This new platform referred to as RAMSAY-2 incorporates two robotic arms. The arms are guided by several inexpensive, open-source, electronic modules. RAMSAY-2 performs various operations on the samples. Two robotic arms work synchronously to process multiple samples. The system recognizes the delivered samples, aliquots solutions (e.g., substrates of biochemical reactions, diluents), incubates the samples with the reagents, delivers the processed samples to the ion source of the mass spectrometer, and initiates data acquisition. The increased efficiency and versatility are due to implementation of two arms, several microfluidic pumps, fast servos, and the modular design of the control unit. RAMSAY-2 handles multiple sample processing workflows encoded in radio frequency identification tags attached to the samples and can easily be reprogrammed according to the specific requirements of sample processing before mass spectrometric detection. As an example, we demonstrate that RAMSAY-2 can autonomously collect data to evaluate enzymatic activities in enzyme samples supplied by the user. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.