JP2007155645A - Reagent container - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a reagent container which sufficiently ensures seal strength when a reagent is hermetically housed in a container made of a general-purpose resin by a coating film and allow the leading end of a pipette chip or an injection needle to pierce the coating film to easily dispense the reagent. <P>SOLUTION: In the reagent container having a resin molded body having a reagent housing part 5 capable of preserving a liquid 12 and constituted so that the opening part 3 of the reagent housing part 5 is closed by a hermetic seal film 8 containing at least a base material 9 and a seal layer 10, the seal layer 10 consists mainly of a thermoplastic polyester resin and constituted of a blend of the thermoplastic polyester resin with a glass transition point of 10°C or below and a thermoplastic polyester resin with a glass transition point is 60°C or above. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a reagent container.

  Conventionally, reagent containers for storing and storing various reagents have been used in fields such as biotechnology and chemistry. Among such reagent containers, there are test tubes and those using wells (recesses) formed in so-called chips, and generally the reagents contained in these containers are pipette tips and injection needles. Etc., and the separated reagent is dispensed to a reaction part arranged on another place or on the same chip, and the subsequent reaction process is performed.

In the reagent container, the inside and outside of the container are always in communication with each other, and the reagent evaporates when left for a long time or heated. Therefore, in recent years, the evaporation of the reagent is prevented by closing the opening of such a reagent container with a coating film, and the reagent can be easily obtained by simply piercing the coating film with the tip of a pipette tip or an injection needle. Those that can be sorted have been proposed (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
JP 09-099932 A

  By the way, some of the above-described reagent containers provided on the chip perform optical inspection on the same chip, and are transparent general-purpose materials such as polypropylene, polyethylene, polyester, vinyl chloride, polycarbonate, acrylic, and ABS. Resin may be used. However, when a transparent general-purpose resin is used for the reagent container, particularly when a highly transparent polycarbonate is used, sufficient sealing strength cannot be obtained unless a sealing agent having a low glass transition point is used. Therefore, for example, the coating film described above is coated with a sealing agent having a low glass transition point to a thickness of about 2 to 4 μm to seal the reagent container. However, the sealing agent having a low glass transition point is a glass transition point. Since there is a so-called tack that is easy to stick at room temperature compared to a high sealant, for example, when a coating film wound in a roll shape in the manufacturing process is cut out and used as necessary, it is sealed with the above tack. There is a problem that a so-called blocking occurs in which the upper surface of the coating film in contact with the sealing layer is adhered to the sealing layer and the coating film cannot be pulled out smoothly.

  On the other hand, if the glass transition point of the sealing agent is low, generally sufficient sealing strength cannot be ensured for metals. Therefore, to prevent the coating film from coming into close contact with the periphery of the pipette tip or injection needle during reagent collection, or to provide a light-shielding property, for example, when a metal layer such as aluminum is provided on the coating film, the sealing strength against the metal layer is ensured. There is a problem that it becomes impossible.

  In addition, some film-type sealants conventionally formed by coextrusion can seal between the metal layer and the general-purpose resin with sufficient strength, but the thickness of the seal layer is as thick as about 50 μm. Therefore, when it uses as a sealing agent of the reagent container mentioned above, there exists a subject that the tip of a pipette tip or an injection needle cannot be penetrated to a covering film.

  In view of this, the present invention ensures sufficient sealing strength when a reagent is sealed in a container made of general-purpose resin with a coating film, and easily separates the reagent by penetrating the tip of a pipette tip or injection needle through the coating film. The present invention provides a reagent container that can be used.

In order to solve the above problems, the invention described in claim 1 has a reagent storage section (for example, reagent storage section 5 in the embodiment) in which a reagent (for example, the liquid 12 in the embodiment) can be stored. The resin molded body has an opening (for example, the opening 3 in the embodiment) of the reagent container, at least an aluminum layer (for example, the substrate 9 in the embodiment) and a seal layer (for example, the embodiment). A reagent container closed with a covering film (for example, the sealing film 8 in the embodiment), wherein the sealing layer is mainly composed of a thermoplastic polyester resin and has a glass transition point of 10 ° C. It is characterized by comprising a blend of the following thermoplastic polyester resin and a thermoplastic polyester resin having a glass transition point of 60 ° C. or higher.
By comprising in this way, while blocking of a coating film can be prevented, the sealing strength of both an aluminum layer and a resin molding can be ensured with a thin sealing layer.

The invention described in claim 2 is characterized in that the aluminum layer is made of hard aluminum having a thickness of 10 μm or less.
With this configuration, the sealing strength of the covering film that closes the opening can be improved, and for example, when a pipette tip or an injection needle is pierced through the covering film, the sealing layer is pipetted. It can prevent sticking to outer peripheral surfaces, such as a chip | tip and an injection needle.

The invention described in claim 3 is characterized in that the covering film has a film layer and a seal layer on the lower surface of the aluminum layer, and a protective layer (for example, the protective layer 11 in the embodiment) on the upper surface.
By comprising in this way, handling becomes favorable and intensity | strength can be improved.

The invention described in claim 4 is characterized in that the protective layer is a brittle resin.
By comprising in this way, compared with the case where brittle resin is not used for a protective layer, when a pipette tip, an injection needle, etc. are stabbed into a coating film, it can be penetrated easily.

  According to the first aspect of the present invention, the covering film can be prevented from blocking, and the sealing strength of both the aluminum layer and the resin molded body can be secured with a thin sealing layer. There is an effect that the reagent can be easily separated while improving.

  According to the invention described in claim 2, the sealing strength of the covering film that closes the opening can be improved, and the covering film is covered when, for example, a pipette tip or an injection needle is pierced and penetrated. Since it is possible to prevent the film from sticking to the outer peripheral surface of a pipette tip, an injection needle or the like, there is an effect that the reagent can be separated stably.

  According to the invention described in claim 3, by providing a protective layer on the upper surface of the aluminum layer and providing a film layer on the lower surface, the handling can be improved and the strength can be improved, thus improving the merchantability. There is an effect that can be done.

  According to the invention described in claim 4, compared to the case where no brittle resin is used for the protective layer, for example, when a pipette tip or an injection needle is pierced into the coating film, there is an effect that it can be easily penetrated. .

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In this embodiment, an example of a reagent container provided with a plurality of wells (recesses) serving as reagent storage units will be described.
In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a reagent container. The reagent container 1 includes a plate-like substrate 2 whose vertical and horizontal dimensions are set to several centimeter squares or less. The substrate 2 has an opening 3 on the upper surface of the substrate 2 and has a substantially semicircular cross section. The four reagent storage parts 5 formed in a shape are arranged in 2 rows and 2 columns. Note that the number and arrangement of the reagent storage units 5 may be set as appropriate.

  The substrate 2 can be made of a transparent plastic material, for example, a general-purpose resin such as polypropylene, polyester, vinyl chloride, PC (polycarbonate), acrylic, ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), or the like. The thickness dimension is preferably set to a thickness dimension that can ensure sufficient strength during use. Producing the substrate 2 using such a synthetic resin is preferable because it is excellent in heat resistance, chemical resistance, moldability, and the like. Here, the use of polycarbonate is advantageous when optical inspection is performed with high transparency.

  Furthermore, the reagent container 5 is not limited to a substantially semicircular cross section. For example, a truncated cone shape, a truncated pyramid shape, a cone shape, a truncated pyramid shape, a hemispherical end portion, etc., processability formation, solution injection property, etc. Therefore, various shapes can be adopted. Further, when the reagent container 5 is formed on the substrate 2, when the substrate 2 is formed of a hard resin such as PC (polycarbonate), it is preferable to use a resin cutting method. Is preferably made of a soft material such as PP (polypropylene), it is preferable to use a resin molding method.

  The reagent storage unit 5 serves as a storage unit into which a liquid (reagent) 12 such as a sample reagent, other reagents, a reagent used for detection reaction, a buffer, or a diluent is injected. The length is set according to the amount of the liquid 12 accommodated, and the diameter of the opening 3 is preferably set to 5 to 10 mm and the depth is set to 5 mm or less. In addition, the reagent container 5 may have a structure in which a silicon coating or a vapor deposition layer of an inorganic metal compound is provided on the inner wall surface of the reagent container 5 in order to provide moisture resistance, gas barrier properties, and solution resistance. . Furthermore, in order to improve the recovery efficiency of the liquid 12 stored in the reagent storage unit 5, a coating layer such as silicon may be provided on the inner surface of the reagent storage unit 5 or a surface treatment such as plasma treatment or corona treatment may be performed. good.

  Incidentally, a sealing film (covering film) 8 for closing the plurality of openings 3 after injecting the liquid 12 is attached to the above-described reagent container 5 of the reagent container 1. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 2, the sealing film 8 has a two-layer structure in which a base material (aluminum layer) 9 is disposed in the upper layer and a seal layer 10 is disposed in the lower layer, and the seal disposed in the lower layer. It is fixed to the upper surface of the substrate by the layer 10, and the liquid 12 is sealed in the reagent container 5. When the liquid 12 is dispensed, a needle or pipette tip of a syringe is pierced and penetrated through the sealing film 8 to suck out the reagent in the reagent storage unit 5.

The substrate 9 is made of so-called hard aluminum, and preferably has a thickness of 10 μm or less, an elongation of 1% / cm ² or less, and a bursting degree of 0.5 kg / cm ² or less. Here, the degree of rupture is JIS-P-8112, and the elongation is a measured value according to JIS-C-2151 (tensile speed 50 mm / min).

  On the other hand, the sealing layer 10 is composed of a thermoplastic polyester resin as a main component, and is preferably set to a thickness of about 2 to 4 μm by applying it to the lower surface of the substrate 9. Here, the thermoplastic polyester resin has a glass transition point (hereinafter simply referred to as Tg) of 10 ° C. or lower, more preferably −10 ° C. or lower, and Tg of 60 ° C. or higher, more preferably 75 ° C. It is comprised by the blend with the above thermoplastic polyester resin. More specifically, the blend ratio of the thermoplastic polyester resin in the seal layer 10 is 50 to 90% for a thermoplastic polyester resin having a Tg of 60 ° C. or higher, and 10 to 50% for a thermoplastic polyester resin having a Tg of 10 ° C. or lower. It is said that. In the case where the thermoplastic polyester resin having a Tg of 60 ° C. or higher is less than 50%, blocking due to tack occurs. On the other hand, when the thermoplastic polyester resin having a Tg of 60 ° C. or higher is more than 90%, a reagent is used. A sufficient sealing strength to the container 1 cannot be obtained.

As another embodiment of the sealing film 8, a protective layer 11 may be provided on the upper surface of the substrate 9 as shown in FIG. The protective layer 11 can be made of an acrylic resin or a polyester resin film having a thickness of 15 μm or less, an elongation of 30% / 180 mm or less, and a bursting degree of 2 kg / cm ² or less. Use of so-called mat PET, which is a brittle resin processed into a mat shape, is preferable because the piercing property by a needle such as a syringe can be improved. The brittle resin is a resin that is weak against impact and has a so-called “brittle” property. For example, a foamed resin may be used in addition to a mat-like surface.

  In this way, when the sealing film 8 has a three-layer structure of the protective layer 11, the base material 9, and the sealing layer 10, the thickness of the sealing film 8 increases by the amount of the protective layer 11, and the pipette tip or the injection needle Since the tip hardly penetrates, the thickness of the hard aluminum of the base material is set to 10 μm or less, preferably 8 μm or less. By comprising in this way, the sealing film 8 can be made into the 3 layer structure which a pipette tip and an injection needle can penetrate easily.

The liquid 12 stored in the reagent storage unit 5 described above can be used by being dispensed to a reaction unit on another place or on the same chip, for example, for detection of antigen-antibody reaction and DNA reaction. ing.
In the case of an antigen-antibody reaction, for example, the liquid 12 which is a reagent such as an antibody is stored in the reagent storage unit 5 and added to the reaction unit which is located in another place or on the same chip and where the antigen is previously arranged. The presence or absence of reaction is detected. At this time, the presence or absence of a reaction can be detected by attaching a labeling substance to either the antigen or the antibody. If a plurality of reaction units are provided, the presence or absence of a plurality of antigen-antibody reactions can be detected.

  On the other hand, in the case of detection of DNA, a liquid 12 as a sample DNA reagent is stored in the reagent storage unit 5, and the liquid 12 is placed in another place or on the same chip, and a nucleic acid probe is placed in advance. To detect the presence or absence of reaction. At this time, the presence or absence of a reaction can be detected by attaching a labeling substance to the sample DNA. If a plurality of reaction units are provided and nucleic acid probes having different sequences are arranged, the sequence of the sample DNA can be detected efficiently. Moreover, it can be used for the analysis of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in DNA reaction. In this case, there may be a plurality of nucleic acid probes and other reagents used for detection, and one of those reagents only needs to be labeled. The SNP analysis may use an invader method developed by Third Wave Technologies, Inc. (Madison, Wisconsin, USA).

  Next, the case where the reagent container 5 of the reagent container 1 described above is actually sealed with the sealing film 8 will be described. In addition, Examples 1-4 are what blended the thermoplastic polyester resin from which Tg differs, respectively, and the comparative examples 1 and 2 have shown the case where the conventional blend is not performed.

The reagent container 1 is a polycarbonate molded body which is a general-purpose resin that is difficult to obtain a sealing strength, and as shown in FIG. 1, the reagent container 1 is provided with a reagent container 5 formed in a semicircular cross section. The diameter of the opening 3 of the reagent container 5 is 6 mm, the reagent container 5 is filled with the liquid 12, and the opening 3 is sealed with a sealing film 8 at 160 ° C., 0.5 MPa, 1.0 second. The peel strength was measured after sealing.
The sealing film 8 uses hard aluminum having a thickness of 10 μm as the base material 9, and the sealing layer 10 has a product name PES-360S30 (Tg: 65 ° C.) manufactured by Toagosei Co., Ltd. and a product name PES310S30 manufactured by Toagosei Co., Ltd. (Tg: 8 ° C.) blended at a solid content mass ratio of 7: 3 was applied to the base material 9 to a dry thickness of 4 μm.

Similar to Example 1 described above, the reagent container 1 is a polycarbonate molded body, which is a general-purpose resin that is particularly difficult to obtain a sealing strength, and includes a reagent container 5 that has a semicircular cross section as shown in FIG. Reagent container 1 was designated. The diameter of the opening 3 of the reagent container 5 is 6 mm, the reagent container 5 is filled with the liquid 12, and the opening 3 is sealed with a sealing film 8 at 160 ° C., 0.5 MPa, 1.0 second. The peel strength was measured after sealing.
The sealing film 8 uses hard aluminum having a thickness of 10 μm as the base material 9 and, as the sealing layer 10, the product name PES-360S30 (Tg: 65 ° C.) manufactured by Toagosei Co., Ltd. and the product name PES355R3S30 manufactured by Toagosei Co., Ltd. Tg: −4 ° C.) blended at a solid content mass ratio of 7: 3 was used so as to have a dry thickness of 4 μm.

As in Examples 1 and 2 described above, the reagent container 1 is a polycarbonate molded body, which is a general-purpose resin that is particularly difficult to obtain a sealing strength. As shown in FIG. 1, the reagent container 5 is formed in a semicircular cross section. The reagent container 1 was provided. The diameter of the opening 3 of the reagent container 5 is 6 mm, the reagent container 5 is filled with the liquid 12, and the opening 3 is sealed with a sealing film 8 at 160 ° C., 0.5 MPa, 1.0 second. The peel strength was measured after sealing.
The sealing film 8 uses hard aluminum having a thickness of 10 μm as the base material 9 and, as the sealing layer 10, the product name PES-360S30 (Tg: 65 ° C.) manufactured by Toagosei Co., Ltd. and the product name Byron 550 manufactured by Toyobo Co., Ltd. (Tg: −17 ° C.) blended at a solid content mass ratio of 7: 3 was used so as to have a dry thickness of 4 μm.

As in Examples 1 to 3 described above, the reagent container 1 is a polycarbonate molded body that is a general-purpose resin that is particularly difficult to obtain a sealing strength. As shown in FIG. 1, the reagent container 5 is formed in a semicircular cross section. The reagent container 1 was provided. The diameter of the opening 3 of the reagent container 5 is 6 mm, the reagent container 5 is filled with the liquid 12, and the opening 3 is sealed with a sealing film 8 at 160 ° C., 0.5 MPa, 1.0 seconds. The peel strength was measured after sealing.
The sealing film 8 uses hard aluminum having a thickness of 10 μm as the base material 9 and, as the sealing layer 10, the product name Byron 885 (Tg: 79 ° C.) manufactured by Toyobo Co., Ltd. and the product name PES355R3S30 (Tg manufactured by Toagosei Co., Ltd.). : -4 ° C.) at a solid content mass ratio of 7: 3 was applied to a dry thickness of 4 μm.

(Comparative Example 1)
The reagent container 1 is a polycarbonate molded body which is a general-purpose resin that is difficult to obtain a sealing strength, and as shown in FIG. 1, the reagent container 1 is provided with a reagent container 5 formed in a semicircular cross section. The diameter of the opening 3 of the reagent container 5 is 6 mm, the reagent container 5 is filled with the liquid 12, and the opening 3 is sealed with a sealing film 8 at 160 ° C., 0.5 MPa, 1.0 second. The peel strength was measured after sealing.
The sealing film 8 uses hard aluminum having a thickness of 10 μm as the base material 9 and is coated with a product name PES-360S30 (Tg: 65 ° C.) manufactured by Toagosei Co., Ltd. so as to have a dry thickness of 4 μm as the sealing layer 10. A thing was used.

(Comparative Example 2)
Similar to Comparative Example 1, the reagent container 1 is a polycarbonate molded body that is a general-purpose resin that is difficult to obtain a sealing strength, and includes a reagent container 5 having a semicircular cross section as shown in FIG. It was set to 1. The diameter of the opening 3 of the reagent container 5 is 6 mm, the reagent container 5 is filled with the liquid 12, and the opening 3 is sealed with a sealing film 8 at 160 ° C., 0.5 MPa, 1.0 second. The peel strength was measured after sealing.
The sealing film 8 is made by applying hard aluminum having a thickness of 10 μm as the base material 9 and applying a product name PES-310S30 (Tg: 8 ° C.) manufactured by Toagosei Co., Ltd. so as to have a dry thickness of 4 μm as the sealing layer 10. Was used. These results are listed in Table 1 below.

  Therefore, according to the above-described embodiment, the sealing layer 10 is composed of a blend of a thermoplastic polyester resin having a glass transition point of 10 ° C. or lower and a thermoplastic polyester resin having a glass transition point of 60 ° C. or higher. As shown, the sealing strength (peeling strength that is difficult to peel) of both the base material 9 and the reagent container 1 with the thin seal layer 10 is 0.9 N / 15 mm, 0.5 N / of Comparative Examples 1 and 2. Higher than 15 mm, 7.7 N / 15 mm (Example 1), 7.1 N / 15 mm (Example 2), 5.2 N / 15 mm (Example 3), 5.7 N / 15 mm (Example 4), respectively. Furthermore, since the tack can be suppressed and blocking of the sealing film 8 can be prevented, the reagent can be easily separated while improving the reliability.

  Further, by forming the base material 9 with hard aluminum of 10 μm or less, the sealing strength of the sealing film 8 that seals the opening 3 can be improved, and for example, a pipette tip, an injection needle, etc. Since the sealing film 8 can be prevented from coming into close contact with the outer peripheral surface of a pipette tip, an injection needle or the like when penetrating and penetrating, the liquid 12 can be stably separated.

  And when it is set as the 3 layer structure which provides the protective layer 11 on the upper surface of the base material 9 of the sealing film 8, handling becomes favorable and can improve intensity | strength, As a result, merchantability can be improved. .

The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment. In addition to the reagent container 5 formed on the substrate 2, the liquid 12 is filled in containers of various shapes such as a tube shape and a bottle shape. The lever 3 may be closed with a sealing film 8.
Furthermore, in the above embodiment, the case where the base material 9 made of aluminum and the reagent container 1 made of general-purpose resin are sealed by the sealing layer 10 has been described. However, as another aspect, as shown in FIG. A resin film layer 9 a may be provided between the sealing layer 10 and the sealing layer 10, and the sealing film 10 may seal the resin film layer 9 a and the resin reagent container 1. By providing the film layer 9a in this way, even if a part of the seal layer 10 is eroded by the liquid 12 that is biased to acidity or alkalinity, for example, the liquid 12 and the substrate 9 are in direct contact with each other. Since it can prevent that the base material 9 melt | dissolves or oxidizes, durability of the sealing film 8 can be improved and it becomes advantageous.

And in the said embodiment, although it forms by apply | coating the sealing layer 10 to the base material 9, the method of forming the sealing layer 10 is not restricted to application | coating, The thickness is about 2-4 micrometers. Anything can be used.
In the above embodiment, the sealing film 8 closes the openings 3 of the plurality of reagent containing portions 5. However, the sealing film 8 individually closes the openings 3 of the reagent containing portions 5. May be.

It is a perspective view of a chip in an embodiment of the invention. It is sectional drawing of the chip | tip along the AA line of FIG. 1 in embodiment of this invention. It is sectional drawing equivalent to FIG. 2 of the other aspect in embodiment of this invention. It is sectional drawing equivalent to FIG. 2 of the other aspect in embodiment of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

2 Substrate 3 Opening 5 Reagent Storage Unit 6 Reaction Unit 7 Detection Unit 8 Sealing Film (Coating Film)
9 Base material (aluminum layer)
10 Sealing layer 11 Protective layer 12 Liquid (reagent)

Claims (4)

  A reagent container having a resin molded body having a reagent storage section capable of storing a reagent, wherein the opening of the reagent storage section is closed with a covering film including at least an aluminum layer and a seal layer, wherein the seal layer is A reagent container comprising a thermoplastic polyester resin as a main component and a blend of a thermoplastic polyester resin having a glass transition point of 10 ° C or lower and a thermoplastic polyester resin having a glass transition point of 60 ° C or higher.   The reagent container according to claim 1, wherein the aluminum layer is made of hard aluminum having a thickness of 10 μm or less.   The reagent container according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the coating film has a film layer and a seal layer on a lower surface of the aluminum layer, and a protective layer on an upper surface. The reagent container according to claim 3, wherein the protective layer is a brittle resin.

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