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| Company | Products | Technology | Services | Inquiries | Information |
| Introduction |
| JetCutter |
| LentiKats® |
| Conventionals |
We offer a new matrix for immobilization purposes based on polyvinyl alcohol (PVA).
PVA is a non-toxic polymer that allows production of hydrogels with excellent
mechanical properties. The patented LentiKat®Liquid offers you the possibility
of entrapping various (bio)catalysts or powder-like material, e.g. zeoliths or charcoal,
at room temperature - that means at gentle conditions - in stable
hydrogels.
Basic Information and Properties The following picture shows the geometry of a LentiKat®. The lenticular form is optimized for as little limitations due to undesired diffusion effects as possible. Thus viable cells entrapped in the PVA matrix are capable of growing inside the gel and will form colonies throughout the whole LentiKat®.
Using LentiKats® for entrapment has several advantages compared to other methods often used for immobilization:
The following table shows mechanical properties of hydrogels made from different polymers - note the extraordinary flexibility of PVA. LentiKats® made from PVA with immobilized bacteria were stirred at 30ºC with a magnetic stirrer bar at high speed for three months without loss in stability.
The lenticular shape is obtained by partially drying small droplets of LentiKat®Liquid. It is ordered sterile and ready-to-use. For first trials the material is liquified using a microwave oven or a water bath. After cooling down the LentiKat®Liquid you mix in your biocatalyst and then use a syringe to form droplets. The gelation occurs without any need to add other chemicals due to a controlled partial drying. After waiting for approx. 15 to 30 minutes the hydrogels are re-swollen in LentiKat®Stabilizer to harden the matrix and to finish your LentiKats®. Now you can run all the experiments you planned for your new LentiKats®. Further details can be found in the manual "Tips&Tricks". You can download these files (approx. 180 KB each) without charge from our server. Send any comments about this manual to info@geniaLab.com |
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To form lenticular LentiKats® with entrapped biocatalysts small droplets of polymer solution have to be formed. This task can be tedious when using standard lab equipment. Moreover it is often difficult to guarantee identical conditions for the formation, which is crucial in aspect of reproducibility purposes.
We offer a tool for this process to make your daily lab work more efficient. Based on the well-known principle of printing a special printer head was designed to transfer more than 400 identical droplets to a small dropping plate with an optimized surface in less than a minute.
By setting parameters on the printer the volume of the droplets can be adjusted. This allows producing LentiKats® of various sizes to suit your special needs. The range of possible sizes is from 1.5 to 5 mm in diameter.
Multiple plates can be printed in a row. After some initial practice it is easily possible to produce 50 g of LentiKats® within one hour of work.
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Enzyme entrapment with LentiKats®
In principle enzyme solutions can be mixed directly with LentiKat®Liquid for encapsulation in LentiKats®.
Unfortunately the molecular weight of most of the enzymes in not large enough to prevent leaching of
the enzyme from the hydrogel network. One well-known method for circumventing the loss of enzyme is crosslinking
or co-crosslinking it prior to encapsulation.
Chitosan is a frequently used polymer for raising the enzyme´s size. It offers a multitude of free amino-groups
making it suitable for crosslinking with lysine residues of the enzyme for example by using glutardialdehyde (1,5-Pentandial).
Different standard recipes were published for the crosslinking procedure - one very useful is given in publication [L4] and the relating supporting information.
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