Overview
Excitation and detection wavelength ranges for the CFX96 Touch™ and CFX96 Touch Deep Well™ systems.
Innovative Optical Design
The CFX96 Touch™ and CFX96 Touch Deep Well™ systems' solid-state optical technology (six filtered LEDs and six filtered photodiodes) provides sensitive detection for precise quantification and target discrimination.
Scanning just above the sample plate, the optics shuttle individually illuminates and detects fluorescence from each well with high sensitivity and no cross talk. The optical system automatically collects data from all wells during data acquisition, so you can enter or edit well information on your own schedule.
Five-Target Multiplexing
The CFX96 Touch and CFX96 Touch Deep Well systems can discriminate up to five targets in a single reaction well. The optical filter sets are designed to maximize fluorescence detection for specific dyes in specific channels. At every position and with every scan, the optics shuttle is reproducibly centered above each well, so the light path is always fixed and optimal, and there is no need to sacrifice data collection in one of the channels to normalize to a passive reference.
Fast Scan Option
You can complete SYBR® Green I and single-color FAM protocols even faster using the fast scan mode, which reads single-channel fluorescence from all 96 wells in just 3 seconds.
Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET)
The CFX96 Touch and CFX96 Touch Deep Well systems' optics shuttle includes one channel with an LED-filter photodiode combination dedicated for FRET singleplex experiments, further expanding your experimental options.
If you're like most researchers, you want to get results faster. Many factors contribute to the overall time it takes to get PCR results: the time to design, program, and optimize a protocol, the time to run the protocol, and the time to analyze the results. Bio-Rad engineers have developed a complete thermal cycling system that will speed every step of the PCR process to give you what's really important — a shorter time from setup to results.
Protocol autowriter — generates an optimal protocol based on your polymerase, primers, and product length.
Thermal gradient feature — identifies optimal annealing temperature in a single run.
Reduced-mass sample block — fast ramping and settling produce the shortest time to target temperature available in a thermal cycler.
Intuitive software — makes programming faster and easier for PCR and real-time PCR.
The patented* reduced-mass sample block heats and cools more quickly than standard blocks, so average ramp rates are increased and overall run times are reduced.
Superior Uniformity
Precision of the temperature steps is critical for the rate and efficiency of PCR. To obtain reliable, consistent results, all sample wells must maintain proper temperature throughout each incubation step. The CFX96 Touch™ system uses six independently controlled thermal electric modules (TEs), the heating and cooling elements of the thermal cycler, to maintain tight temperature uniformity at all points during a run — even while ramping.
Rapid Arrival at Target Temperature
A key component of overall protocol run time is the time required to reach target temperature, which is determined by the average ramp rate and the time needed for the sample block to reach thermal uniformity. Maximum ramp rate is less important because it can fluctuate significantly during the ramp. The CFX96 Touch system produces high average ramp rates and tight uniformity during ramping to yield fast time to target temperature and faster protocol run times. Run times can be dramatically shortened — to less than 30 min — while still producing accurate quantitative results. Now you can tailor your runs around your schedule instead of tailoring your schedule around your runs.
Superior uniformity with rapid arrival at target temperature. 1000-series thermal cyclers exhibit high average ramp rates, rapid settling time, and tight thermal uniformity throughout the ramp. This graph shows the temperature measured by probes in 15 wells across a sample block. The traces are nearly indistinguishable due to the tight uniformity. Note the consistent high average ramp rate throughout heating and cooling.
* U.S. patent 7,632,464.
Efficient Optimization
Determining the optimal temperature for primer annealing is crucial for efficient and specific amplification of product. With the CFX96 Touch systems' thermal gradient feature, you can determine the optimal temperature for primer annealing in a single experiment, minimizing the use of precious samples and reagents and saving valuable research time. At any step in a protocol, you can program a temperature gradient of up to 24°C across the reaction block. The thermal cycler provides exceptional temperature uniformity and reproducibility within each gradient zone, and the temperatures can easily be programmed and viewed on the touchscreen or onscreen in the software so you can quickly identify the optimal incubation temperature.
Thermal gradient experiment for optimizing annealing temperature. A tenfold dilution series (106 to 10 copies) of plasmid containing GAPDH template was amplified in the presence of SYBR® Green dye using a protocol with an annealing thermal gradient ranging from 55 to 68°C. Results are presented for three temperatures, showing 62°C as the optimal in this case, with early quantification cycle (Cq) values and the highest standard curve efficiency. RFU, relative fluorescence units.
O-ring hermetic seal extends the life of the heating and cooling elements. Condensation from constant heating and cooling can degrade thermal electric modules (TEs), causing them to fail. Bio-Rad 1000-series cyclers include a patented* O-ring seal (red in illustration) that forms an airtight barrier around the TEs, preventing exposure to condensation. This substantially lengthens the life of TEs and guarantees outstanding thermal performance.
* U.S. patent 7,051,536.
The Ultimate in Configuration Flexibility
A System That Grows with Your Research
The flexibility of the 1000-series platform allows your setup to grow and evolve as your needs change. Adding more instruments to increase throughput or expand options is as easy as connecting a USB cable. CFX Manager™ software can independently run four instruments, including a combination of CFX96 Touch™, CFX96 Touch Deep Well™, or CFX384 Touch™ real-time instruments and C1000 Touch™ or S1000™ thermal cyclers. You may start a run on one instrument while another is running a different experiment, or you can start the same experiment on all four instruments at once.
Configuration Options
 |
Stand-Alone
|
 |
Stand-Alone Multi-Instrument
|
 |
Software-Controlled Stand-Alone
|
 |
Software-Controlled Multi-Instrument
|
Excellent uniformity. IL-1β plasmid template diluted to 105 copies/reaction amplified in the presence of a FAM-labeled detection probe with iQ™ supermix. Graph shows 96 replicates of 10 µl reactions. Average quantification cycle (Cq) = 19.81 ± 0.10. RFU, relative fluorescence units.
Confidently analyze data from a broad range of sample concentrations even when multiplexing five targets. A–E, fluorescence data from a series of tenfold dilutions of plasmid DNA (108–102 copies) amplified using reporter dyes to monitor five targets: 
, FAM/actin; , HEX/GAPDH; , Texas Red/cyclophilin; , Cy5/tubulin; , Quasar 705/IL-1β; F, standard curves generated from data in A–E, reaction efficiencies range from 97 to 103%. Cq, quantification cycle; RFU, relative fluorescence units.
Biogazelle and Bio-Rad have teamed up to offer a powerful suite of tools that will speed up real-time PCR data analysis and accelerate discovery.
Key features of qbasePLUS software:
- Reliable validation — based on proven solutions for quality control, normalization, and inter-run calibration
- Efficient data analysis — import and consolidate information from multiple runs and multiple instruments to quickly analyze your complete data set, and use a guided statistical wizard to determine significance
- Streamlined publication submission — export an RDML file containing annotations, such as sample and assay information, to conform to the MIQE guidelines
Instrument Compatibility of PCR Plastic Consumables
| Real-Time PCR Detection Systems | |||||
 MiniOpticon™ System |
 iCycler iQ®, iQ™5, MyiQ™, and MyiQ™2 Systems |
 Chromo4™ System |
 DNA Engine Opticon® 2 System |
 CFX96 Touch™, CFX96 Touch Deep Well™, CFX384 Touch™, and CFX Connect™ Systems |
|
| Tubes | |||||
| High-profile individual tubes | • | • | • | CFX96 Touch Deep Well only |
|
| Low-profile tube strips | • | • | • | • | |
| 48- and 96-Well Plates | |||||
| Hard-Shell® low-profile 96-well semi-skirted PCR plates | • | ||||
| Hard-Shell high-profile 96-well semi-skirted PCR plates | • | • | CFX96 Touch Deep Well only |
||
| Hard-Shell low-profile 96-well skirted PCR plates | • | • | • | ||
| Multiplate™ high-profile unskirted PCR plates | • | • | • | CFX96 Touch Deep Well only |
|
| Multiplate low-profile unskirted PCR plates | • | • | • | • | |
| iQ™ 96-well semi-skirted PCR plates | • | • | |||
| 384-Well Plates | |||||
| Hard-Shell 384-well skirted PCR plates | • | ||||
| Lids and Adhesive Seals | |||||
| Optical flat cap strips | • | • | • | • | • |
| Microseal® 'B' adhesive seals | • | • | • | • | |
| Microseal® ꞌCꞌ optical seals | • | • | • | • | |
| Heat Sealer and Optically Clear Heat Seal | |||||
| PX1™ PCR plate sealer | • | • | • | • | |
| Optically clear heat seal | • | • | • | • | |
The qPCR Applications Guide is a comprehensive source of information on real-time PCR. Complete with detailed information on optimizing, validating, and analyzing real-time PCR data, this technically focused applications guide is a resource for experienced researchers as well as those wanting to learn more about using real-time PCR for applications such as qPCR, RT-qPCR, genotyping, and GMO detection. This guidebook includes chapters that cover:
- Key concepts of real-time PCR
- Getting started — experimental design
- Multiplexing considerations
- Data analysis
- Gene expression analysis
- Genotyping allelic discrimination
- GMO detection
This guidebook comes with an easy-to-review real-time PCR quick guide to use at the bench. The quick guide covers the fundamentals of qPCR, design, optimization, and data analysis of qPCR experiments.
