<p>Here's one way I <a href="http://mscreen.lsi.umich.edu/mscreenwiki/index.php/COORDINATE" rel="nofollow noreferrer">found</a>:</p>

<pre><code>A01..A48
..
Z01..Z48
AA01..AA48
..
AF01..AF48
</code></pre>

<p>Pros:</p>

<ul>
<li>Excel does it like that with columns</li>
<li>it's clear what's the row and what's the column</li>
</ul>

<p>Cons:</p>

<ul>
<li>alphabetic sorting of well ids does not what you want</li>
<li>when reading A01 it's not clear whether the plate size is 384 or 1536</li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-23T07:50:05.783Z
2018-04-23T07:50:05.783Z
user829755
<p>and here's a scheme I made up myself:</p>

<pre><code>AA01..AA48
..
AZ01..AZ48
BA01..BA48
..
BF01..BF48
</code></pre>

<p>Pros:</p>

<ul>
<li>alphabetic sorting of well ids does what you expect</li>
<li>it's clear what's the row and what's the column</li>
<li>it's easy to distinguish well ids of 384-well plate from those of a 1536-well plate</li>
</ul>

<p>Cons:</p>

<ul>
<li>it's not used anywhere AFAIK</li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-23T07:54:09.660Z
2018-04-23T07:54:09.660Z
user829755
<p>There's a commonly accepted convention for naming the wells in a 384-well-plate: </p>

<pre><code>A01..A24
B01..B24
..
P01..P24
</code></pre>

<p>It's concise and unambiguous and thus very useful.
For 1536-well plates (32x48) it's more difficult because there's more rows than letters in the alphabet. It seems there's no standard.
Which nomenclatures are out in the field and which is the best?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-14T11:14:32.387Z
Looking into standards/conventions of how to organize biological data most certainly is relevant to bioinformatics, and best answers can be envisioned: "There is now standard X", "Commonly used convention Y", "There is none yet, but Z has proven useful". I'm glad this helpful question was not closed/deleted.
rvf
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-23T07:07:22.087Z
could someone with more reputation than me create and add the tags screening and mtp? and maybe modify the tag hts so that it includes high-throughput-screening?
user829755
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-23T08:12:05.340Z
Can you perhaps modify this such that it's on-topic here? As is, it seems neither directly related to bioinformatics nor a question with a best answer (the goal of the stackexchange network).
Devon Ryan
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-23T08:29:47.003Z
the goad is to find the most suitable scheme for naming well ids in a piece of bioinformatics software, so I don't really understand your concern. Is high-throughput-screening not a part of bioinformatics?
user829755
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-23T08:39:29.707Z
Screening is relevant, but random "how do I label wells" questions aren't necessarily.
Devon Ryan
<hts>
well identifiers in a 1536-well mtp plate
# well identifiers in a 1536-well mtp plate

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-04-23)

There's a commonly accepted convention for naming the wells in a 384-well-plate: 
A01..A24
B01..B24
..
P01..P24

It's concise and unambiguous and thus very useful.
For 1536-well plates (32x48) it's more difficult because there's more rows than letters in the alphabet. It seems there's no standard.
Which nomenclatures are out in the field and which is the best?

**Tags:** hts
> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: could someone with more reputation than me create and add the tags screening and mtp? and maybe modify the tag hts so that it includes high-throughput-screening?  
> **username_2**: Can you perhaps modify this such that it's on-topic here? As is, it seems neither directly related to bioinformatics nor a question with a best answer (the goal of the stackexchange network).  
> **username_0**: the goad is to find the most suitable scheme for naming well ids in a piece of bioinformatics software, so I don't really understand your concern. Is high-throughput-screening not a part of bioinformatics?  
> **username_2**: Screening is relevant, but random "how do I label wells" questions aren't necessarily.  
> **username_1**: Looking into standards/conventions of how to organize biological data most certainly is relevant to bioinformatics, and best answers can be envisioned: "There is now standard X", "Commonly used convention Y", "There is none yet, but Z has proven useful". I'm glad this helpful question was not closed/deleted.  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_0 on 2018-04-23. Score: 2

Here's one way I found:
A01..A48
..
Z01..Z48
AA01..AA48
..
AF01..AF48

Pros:

Excel does it like that with columns
it's clear what's the row and what's the column

Cons:

alphabetic sorting of well ids does not what you want
when reading A01 it's not clear whether the plate size is 384 or 1536


---

### Answer by username_0 on 2018-04-23. Score: 2

and here's a scheme I made up myself:
AA01..AA48
..
AZ01..AZ48
BA01..BA48
..
BF01..BF48

Pros:

alphabetic sorting of well ids does what you expect
it's clear what's the row and what's the column
it's easy to distinguish well ids of 384-well plate from those of a 1536-well plate

Cons:

it's not used anywhere AFAIK


---

