Dear Jose,
I used both instruments for a number of years, first the VP ITC and
later on the ITC 200. I personally find the ITC 200 much more demanding
to operate. I think Microcal managed to improve the sensitivity of the
ITC 200 about 2-3 fold compared to the VP ITC, but they decided to
decrease the volumes by a factor of 6-7. This means that you have to
work at higher sample concentrations in the cell and in the syringe to
get decent signals. In addition the instrument is rather fragile
(especially the glass syringe) and more difficult to clean and maintain.
I decided to go back to the VP ITC. I cannot comment on other instruments.
best wishes
Michael
On 01/17/2012 05:02 PM, Jose Artur Brito wrote:
Dear All,
sorry for this off-topic questions but I would like to have some
feed-back from you on Isothermal Titration Calorimetry (ITC) equipments.
We have a very nice quotation for an iTC200 from GE Healthcare. We
wanted this one because it uses ~200uL sample per measurement (really
nice when your dealing with "precious" samples, ie., proteins with low
expression yields). However, I was told that, although consuming much
less sample, is not as good (sensitivity, mixing issues, bubbles,
...), as the VP-ITC (it uses ~1.4mL per measurement, seven times more
than the iTC200).
Does anyone has experience with these two equipments? Would you prefer
one over the other (please state your reasons)? Would you suggest
another equipment/brand for the ITC (like the NanoITC from TA
Instruments)?
Thanks in advance,
Jose Artur Brito
