[NHCOLL-L:5028] Re: Labeling frozen, ethanol and nitrogen tissue tubes
Dirk Neumann
Dirk.Neumann at zsm.mwn.de
Mon Oct 25 04:27:05 EDT 2010
Hi all,
it seems that the VWR-Pen is not available in Europe; a quite similar
looking pen (Securline, Marker II/Superfrost by Precision Dynamics
Corp., San Fernando) distributed over here seems to work well, but has
the same problems of running/bleeding, especially the red ink version
(Lot.No.1540).
One should be careful with 2B pencils; in most pencils the graphite lead
is replaced with a black polymer (e.g. Hi-Polymer lead), which rubs off
easily, especially on field labels, and especially if transferred to
ethanol. You should rely on art suppliers to be sure to have pencil with
pure graphite lead to be on the safe side if you prefer pencil markings
for any reason or purpose.
Pigmented ink pens like the "edding 1800 profipen" are prefect for
field, collection and any kind of paper labels on tubes; after 3-5 min
of drying, the ink is persitent in water, formalin and ethanol, doesn't
run once it is dry, and will not rub off. Works for conventional
freezing to -80°C, but no information for lq nitrogen usage.
2D-barcodes and Matrix plates:
I would be careful to rely completely on the 2D-barcodes, which are in
most cases printed on the bottom of the tubes. The barcodes to not allow
to locate single tubes on the plates, even worse, some manufacturers
omit a visible (and readable) number and only print the barcode instead.
In case of any hardware trouble, the DNA or tissue collection is
inaccessible. Moreover, when picking single tubes from the Matrix
plates, there is a high risk of swapping positions when sorting the
tubes pack (on and between plates), as the tubes look identical.
Labels inside tissue / DNA-tubes:
I would be very careful with placing anything inside the tubes for two
reasons: First, in most cases, you don't know the chemical composition
of the ink of your pen, and of that what you believe to be "paper"
you're writing on. Second, you don't have a clue if anything of this
stuff will leak from your label and subsequently degrade your DNA, if
any potential acids diffusing from your label will negatively effect the
pH in the (normally) very small liquid volume in your tube etc...
Dirk
Am 23.10.2010 23:05, schrieb Carol Spencer:
> HI Kirsten and NH Coll (look, I am actually providing a summary Greg!):
> We actually do put barcode labels on our tissues now, so once they get
> cataloged or after we write on them in the field, we add a barcode
> sticker that can stand up to liquid nitrogen temperatures and then we
> associate that barcode with the cataloged specimen in our database. So
> this is more permanent. We could put a number inside, and some of our
> researchers do, but yes, it is very inconvenient later when you are
> trying to identify tubes, plus you have to be careful and use sterile
> techniques when pulling the label out. And some use an engraving pen
> in the field, but not all of our researchers, plus the barcode covers
> the engraving.
> We send tubes with subsamples out on loan, and these tubes are labeled
> with pens, thus why we still need the ethanol-proof pens.
>
>
> I did get a number of great responses last time (thanks everyone),
> from folks that use pens, markers, labels, or etch on the vials (some
> of our researchers also etch the vials, in addition to marking them in
> the field). Here is a summary of the responses I received:
>
>
> 1) Other Pens:
> I haven't found anything perfect yet, but did find something much
> better you
> might want to check out. Diversified Biotech (divbio.com
> <http://divbio.com/>) has a solvent
> resistant pen, cat. No. 122 Black, which appears to be much more resistant
> to ethanol exposure than the VWR pens. I poured lots of ethanol (95%)
> over a
> labeled tube, and while the VWR pen immediately bled badly, the DB pen ink
> stayed almost completely intact. One caveat: neither can take a
> combination
> of ethanol AND rubbing, which takes the ink right off. But I think we can
> realistically avoid that combination of stresses in essentially all
> lab and
> field conditions. If the ethanol dries, the ink again becomes very
> resistant
> to rubbing, so there is no "permanent" effect of exposure to ethanol
> that I
> can see right now.
>
> 2) 2-D barcodes:
> For our tissues and DNA's we're heavily invested in the 2-D barcoded tubes
> in 96well format (we buy from Matrix) - they are impervious to all freezer
> conditions, won't rub off with anything short of a file/rasp and are
> immune
> to human error (insofar as applying or reading the label).
>
> They do have a couple minor drawbacks:
> 1. slightly smaller size (both diameter and volume)
> 2. only machine readable
>
> We don't think for our volume and future that these are serious
> limitations.
> We take a handheld scanner and laptop with us for all the field work, and
> scan the tube directly into a spreadsheet upon placing tissues in (or we
> can pre-scan whole racks prior to field, and only verify in field when
> necessary with the hand-held).
> Our biorepository of the future will have no problems locating a specimen
> and doing a quick check of the 2-D barcode (scanner nearby, or by
> then, even
> a cell phone, ipod, palm device on hip of the repository tech to verify...
>
> There will always be occasions to revert to "old-school" - we still do it
> frequently, but we should not necessarily continue what we grew up with
> (particularly if it has known limitations or problems that we can now
> overcome) just because.
>
> 3) Other labels:
> We have now gone across to a hand held, battery operated (or AC) Brady
> Labpal unit:
>
> http://www.bradyid.com/bradyid/pfv/100453%2B4294966631/BRADYID_US_LABPAL/Lab
> oratory/Labels/LABPAL-Labeling-Tool/Products.html
> <http://www.bradyid.com/bradyid/pfv/100453%2B4294966631/BRADYID_US_LABPAL/Laboratory/Labels/LABPAL-Labeling-Tool/Products.html>
>
> The unit is very portable and can be used in the field too. They sell a
> large range of labeling media for this which includes media that will
> withstand liquid nitrogen, -80 and ethanol:
>
> http://www.bradyid.com/bradyid/pbv/100777%2B4294966631%2B4294924875/280050/0
> /~0/~0/~0/Laboratory/Labels/Laboratory-Labels.html
> <http://www.bradyid.com/bradyid/pbv/100777%2B4294966631%2B4294924875/280050/0/%7E0/%7E0/%7E0/Laboratory/Labels/Laboratory-Labels.html>
>
> They also sell continuous feed versions of the Labpal cartridges that
> can be
> used in a thermal transfer printer. We have been very happy with this
> system and although all our tissue are presently in -80 we will also
> hopefully be changing across to liquid nitrogen in the future (NSF
> willing).
>
> 4) Labels inside plus pencil outside:
> We are using cryo vials with the ethanol storage tissues and have
> found a 'belts & braces' approach seems to be working well. A 2B
> pencil will write well on the frosted section of the vial and we back
> that up by putting a slip of label paper with the same number on
> inside. Then we print out a Tissue label with the number,
> identification etc. which goes in & positioned so it can be read
> through the vial window
>
> 5) Engravers:
> We use an electric engraver to "carve" the numbers into the vial on
> the little white area where you usually write with a marker.....very
> fool proof......they are easy to use and inexpensive to purchase. You
> can go over the engraved number with a marker if you want to.....but
> it is easy to read without doing so. We have a couple laying around
> our dept and one at our field station where we prep our mammals. We
> bought them at Sears, Craftsman Brand, about $15 bucks each. In the
> field, when we do not have electricity, we buy the diamond tip scribes
> that are about the size of a pen.....then scratch the number into the
> vial. Both work well and numbers NEVER rub off!
>
> 6) Using labeled bags instead of tubes:
> It is interesting that after years of storing tissue samples, we (the
> molecular community and others who keep tissue samples) still struggle
> with labelling tissue vials. In recent times we have been using 2 ml
> cryo vials (Greiner Bio-One), particularly when sending samples to
> researchers. The Staedtler Lumocolor pen supplied with the vials,
> does write easily on the vials, however the ink is soluble and thus
> easily removed by ethanol. Our solution is to use a HB pencil, as
> Andy Bentley mentioned in his response to your email. By the way, I
> have no experience with the Brady Labpal unit that he refers to.
> We generally do not use cryo vials for our long-term tissue storage.
> We have approximately 10,000 fish muscle samples, which we have
> accumulated since 1994. I am hesitant about using cryo vials for
> long-term sample storage because:
> 1. the vials are small, thus only a small sample can be kept - we like
> to keep large samples (where possible), to allow for multiple
> sub-sampling;
> 2. of concerns with permanency of the pen/pencil used in labelling; &
> 3. of concerns about relying on only a sample number to identify the
> sample within the vial.
> Due to these concerns, we almost exclusively use small snaplock
> plastic bags (50 x 75 mm) for our muscle sample storage in our minus
> 80 C freezer. The advantages of the bags over the vials are twofold.
> One, we can collect a large muscle sample, which allows for multiple
> sub-sampling. Two, we can include a label with more information (such
> as species name, specimen registration number) than just the sample
> number, which allows cross-referencing in case someone miswrites the
> sample number. The major disadvantage of the plastic bags is that our
> minus 80 C freezer is full of plastic bags, which is probably not the
> most economical use of our storage.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 6:17 AM, Kirsten Nicholson <norops at gmail.com
> <mailto:norops at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Good info, I'm always looking for better instruments for this sort
> of thing; thanks for sharing, Carol!
>
> I'm coming late to this conversation, but I'm wondering about two
> things. One is, why not put labels inside the tubes instead of
> writing on the outside where there is the risk of rubbing off or
> coming off altogether? Its slightly more work, but the payoff is
> tremendous in terms of being sure of which tube has what inside.
>
> The other is, I find it incredible that somebody hasn't produced a
> better system for this given that so many of us are faced with
> this problem of labeling tubes _permanently_. I've seen ads for
> label makers that print labels out for tubes, but have not tried
> them, and generally these are not practical in the field, but
> might be useful once back in the lab. Do you or does anyone out
> there have experience with these labeling machines for the lab?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Kirsten
> --
> Kirsten E. Nicholson, Ph.D
>
> Asst. Prof. Biology
> Dept. of Biology
> 217 Brooks Hall
> Central Michigan Univ.
> Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
> 989-774-3758
>
> and
>
> Curator of Natural History
> Museum of Cultural and Natural History
> 103 Rowe Hall
> Central Michigan University
> Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
> 989-774-3829
>
> On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 6:24 PM, Carol Spencer <atrox10 at gmail.com
> <mailto:atrox10 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hi NH-Coll:
>
> Awhile ago I requested information from researchers about
> pens/markers to be used for writing on cryotubes for ethanol,
> frozen, or liquid nitrogen usage. Since that time we at MVZ
> have gone through a couple of marker types and seem to have
> found one that works well in all types of fluid.
>
> This is the VWR Histology Chemical-Resistant Marker, see
> information below.
>
> Previously VWR had changed their formula and their markers
> were not working, so we switched to the Moist-Mark Cancer
> Diagnostics Pen
> (http://www.labsafety.com/Moist-Mark-Plus-Pen_s_141667/Label-Accessories_24541186/).
> This Moist-mark pen is very good with frozen or nitrogen
> tubes, BUT it will run when used with ethanol or other
> chemicals, especially when used on tubes that are very smooth
> and do not have a white area for writing. Since we keep our
> tubes in -80C, switching to liquid nitrogen, and we also use
> them when sending loans of tissue in 95% ethanol, we needed to
> mark with ink that will not come off in all situations.
>
> When using the VWR marker, you should still allow the writing
> to dry completely (several minutes) before put any ethanol or
> other liquid into the tube. If you rub the writing a lot, it
> will fade a bit, but overall this pen seems to work the most
> consistently.
> Thanks,
> Carol
>
>
> VWR® Chemical-Resistant Marker
>
> *Supplier:* VWR International
>
>
> * *
> VWR® Chemical-Resistant Marker
> <https://www.vwrsp.com/catjpg/081/081631.jpg>
>
> Precision ultrafine tip permanently marks slides and
> cassettes. Ink is waterproof, smearproof, odorless, and
> resistant to most chemicals, including alcohol, formalin, and
> xylene. Color: black.
>
> * *
>
>
> View Shopping Basket <https://www.vwrsp.com/myvwr/sb/index.cgi>
>
> *Description* *VWR Catalog#* *Unit* *Price* *Quantity*
> VWR HISTOLOGY MARKER PK12 95042-566 Pack of 12 $55.70
>
> Please verify that you have logged in. This item is
> restricted for purchase to customers with an established
> account and the proper documentation on file. If you are
> logged in and believe you should have access to this item,
> please contact us for additional help at 1-888-320-4357.
> View Shopping Basket <https://www.vwrsp.com/myvwr/sb/index.cgi>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Carol L. Spencer, Ph.D.
> Staff Curator of Herpetology & Researcher
> Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
> 3101 Valley Life Sciences Building
> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA 94720-3160
> atrox10 at gmail.com <mailto:atrox10 at gmail.com>
> atrox at berkeley.edu <mailto:atrox at berkeley.edu>
> TEL: 510-643-5778 /FAX: 510-643-8238
>
> http://www.herpnet.org
> http://mvz.berkeley.edu/
> http://www.vertnet.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Carol L. Spencer, Ph.D.
> Staff Curator of Herpetology & Researcher
> Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
> 3101 Valley Life Sciences Building
> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA 94720-3160
> atrox10 at gmail.com <mailto:atrox10 at gmail.com>
> atrox at berkeley.edu <mailto:atrox at berkeley.edu>
> TEL: 510-643-5778 /FAX: 510-643-8238
>
> http://www.herpnet.org
> http://mvz.berkeley.edu/
> http://www.vertnet.org
--
Dirk Neumann
Tel: 089 / 8107-111
Fax: 089 / 8107-300
email: Dirk.Neumann(a)zsm.mwn.de
Postanschrift:
Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns
Zoologische Staatssammlung München
Dirk Neumann, Sektion Ichthyologie / DNA-Labor
Münchhausenstr. 21
81247 München
Besuchen Sie unsere Sammlung:
http://www.zsm.mwn.de/ich/
---------
Dirk Neumann
Tel: +49-89-8107-111
Fax: +49-89-8107-300
email: Dirk.Neumann(a)zsm.mwn.de
postal address:
Bavarian Natural History Collections
The Bavarian State Collection of Zoology
Dirk Neumann, Section Ichthyology / DNA-Lab
Muenchhausenstr. 21
81247 Munich (Germany)
Visit our section at:
http://www.zsm.mwn.de/ich/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/private/nhcoll-l/attachments/20101025/822539b5/attachment.html
More information about the Nhcoll-l
mailing list