Best Practices for the Use of Micropipettes

Introduction

Mechanical action micropipettes are ubiquitous in laboratories and are used for many routine tasks, including the quantitative measurement and dispensing of analytical samples and reagents. As concentrations of biological and chemical components in the prepared samples for analyses and assays are volume-dependent, incorrectly performed pipetting steps will directly impact the transferred volumes, and hence, the test results. The design and construction of piston-operated air-displacement pipettes (in this poster simply referred to as pipettes) render their performance susceptible to the pipetting technique and skills used by the operator of such devices. This study evaluates a number of techniques that influence the accuracy and precision of the pipetted volume. The pipette operator has the ability to control all of these parameters by using the appropriate pipetting technique, as well as by choosing the appropriate pipette size and type of pipette tips.