KR101764300B1

KR101764300B1 - Reagent cartridge having a cone-type injection opening

Info

Publication number: KR101764300B1
Application number: KR1020150186765A
Authority: KR
Inventors: 김병철; 박유진
Original assignee: 바디텍메드(주)
Priority date: 2015-12-24
Filing date: 2015-12-24
Publication date: 2017-08-04
Also published as: KR20170076963A

Abstract

The present invention relates to a reagent cartridge comprising a conical well for receiving a sample of a sample, the reagent cartridge comprising a conical well (110) for receiving a sample of sample, wherein the well And a rib 111 protruding from the inner circumferential surface.

Description

[0001] Reagent cartridge having a cone-type injection opening [

The present invention relates to a reagent cartridge comprising a cone shaped well that receives a sample of sample.

Various methods have been developed for analyzing samples in various application fields such as environmental monitoring, food inspection, medical diagnosis, etc. However, existing inspection methods require a lot of manual work and various equipments and perform inspection by a predetermined protocol In order to be skilled, the skilled person must manually perform various steps such as injection, mixing, separation and transfer of reagents, reaction, centrifugation, and the like.

Experienced clinical pathologists are needed to perform tests quickly and there are many difficulties to perform multiple tests simultaneously, even if they are skilled clinicians. Especially, in the diagnosis of emergency patients, rapid test results are required for quick emergency treatment. Therefore, a device capable of performing various pathological tests simultaneously and quickly and accurately according to the situation is required.

For this automated inspection, a reagent cartridge pre-injected with reagent is used. A reagent cartridge in which a sample sample is dispensed is inspected through an automated inspection apparatus through a series of processes.

1 (a) and 1 (b) show a general reagent cartridge, wherein (a) is a photograph showing a reagent cartridge and (b) is a front view of a general reagent cartridge.

Referring to FIG. 1, the reagent cartridge 10 may have various shapes according to an analysis purpose or an inspection method, but it includes a well 11 in which a sample to be inspected is accommodated.

The well 11 has a structure in which no sample is bubbled in the sample in order to insert a predetermined amount (100 to 500 μl) of the sample into the tube and to collect it with the tip. If the amount of the sample to be inserted is large, a wide and gentle cylindrical well structure can be solved. On the other hand, if the amount of the sample to be injected is small (25 to 200)), it has a conical well structure in which the volume becomes smaller toward the bottom for easy sampling.

However, such a conical well 11 is liable to generate bubbles unless the pipette is closely attached to the bottom surface of the inlet port when the sample is put in the sample, and the bubbles are likely to be collected Mixing can have a significant impact on the required measurement results.

2 (a), 2 (b), and 2 (c) illustrate the causes of bubbles during use of a general reagent cartridge, FIG. 5 is a view showing a plane and side configuration showing a process of inputting a sample. FIG.

2 (a) shows a case where the tip 20 is closely contacted with the bottom surface in the well 11 and is dispensed at the vertex of the cone, so that the sample sample fills the well 11, This is the most ideal way to dispense.

Next, FIG. 2B shows a case where the tip 20 is placed on the inclined surface of the well 11, and the sample is dispensed along the inclined surface, and the sample 11 fills the well 11 The possibility of occurrence of bubbles is low as compared with the case of (a), but in the process of filling the well 11 with the sample sample in the case where the discharge speed of the sample is fast, the air is not discharged quickly but the air is covered and bubbles are generated .

2 (c) shows the case where the tip 20 is distanced from the bottom surface of the well 11, and when the sample is dispensed, if the drop size of the sample is larger than the diameter of the cone, It can not escape to the outside and causes bubbles.

In this way, bubbles may be generated depending on the position of the tip in the process of dispensing the sample sample into the reagent cartridge. Therefore, in general, the pipette is inserted into the bottom surface of the user to perform dispensing operation. A risk plan is prepared in such a manner as to confirm whether or not bubbles are generated in the air conditioner 11.

However, in reality, the dispensing operation of the sample sample depends on the operator's attention only, so that the bubble may be generated at the time of sample sample dispensing at all times, potentially leading to an error in the measurement result.

Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-2013-0029127 (published on March 31, 2013)

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in order to solve the problems of the prior art, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a reagent cartridge provided with a conical shaped injection portion which does not generate bubbles structurally when a sample sample is dispensed.

In order to achieve the above object, a reagent cartridge according to the present invention comprises a cone-shaped well containing a sample to be sampled, the reagent cartridge comprising a rib protruding from an inner circumferential surface of the well.

Preferably, the rib is formed at any one of quadrants formed at an angle of 90 ° with respect to the axis of rotation C of the well.

Preferably, the rib is formed in each of the quadrants in the diagonal direction among the quadrants forming the 90 ° center of the rotation axis C of the well.

Preferably, the rib is located on a plane offset from the longitudinal plane including the rotation axis C. More preferably, the rib has a side end portion inclined with respect to the rotation axis C .

The reagent cartridge according to the present invention can prevent bubbles from being generated in the sample dispensing process by protruding the ribs on the inner circumferential surface of the conical well to receive the sample sample, There is an effect that can be.

1 (a) and 1 (b) show a general reagent cartridge,
2 (a), (b) and (c) illustrate the cause of bubbles during use of a general reagent cartridge,
3 (a) and 3 (b) are a plan view and a longitudinal sectional view of a well, which is a main component of a reagent cartridge according to the present invention,
4 (a), 4 (b), and 4 (c) illustrate sample injection positions for testing the frequency of occurrence of bubbles in the reagent cartridge of the present invention,
FIGS. 5 and 6 are photographs showing results of sample dispensing experiments for the present invention and comparative examples,
7 (a) and 7 (b) are a plan view and a longitudinal sectional view of a well, which is a main component of a reagent cartridge according to another embodiment of the present invention.

The specific structure or functional description presented in the embodiment of the present invention is merely illustrative for the purpose of illustrating an embodiment according to the concept of the present invention, and embodiments according to the concept of the present invention can be implemented in various forms. And should not be construed as limited to the embodiments described herein, but should be understood to include all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention.

Meanwhile, in the present invention, the terms first and / or second etc. may be used to describe various components, but the components are not limited to the terms. The terms may be referred to as a second element only for the purpose of distinguishing one element from another, for example, to the extent that it does not depart from the scope of the invention in accordance with the concept of the present invention, Similarly, the second component may also be referred to as the first component.

Whenever an element is referred to as being "connected" or "connected" to another element, it may be directly connected or connected to the other element, but it should be understood that other elements may be present in between something to do. On the other hand, when it is mentioned that an element is "directly connected" or "directly contacted" to another element, it should be understood that there are no other elements in between. Other expressions for describing the relationship between components, such as "between" and "between" or "adjacent to" and "directly adjacent to" should also be interpreted.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. The singular expressions include plural expressions unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms " comprises ", or "having ", and the like in the specification are intended to specify the presence of stated features, integers, But do not preclude the presence or addition of steps, operations, elements, parts, or combinations thereof.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

3 (a) and 3 (b) are a plan view and a longitudinal sectional view of a well, which is a main component of a reagent cartridge according to the present invention.

Referring to FIGS. 3A and 3B, the reagent cartridge of the present invention includes a conical well 110 for receiving a sample, and a rib 111 is formed on an inner circumferential surface of the well 110 And is protruded.

The ribs 111 are formed at any one of the quadrants formed at an angle of 90 ° around the rotation axis C of the well 110. In this embodiment, the ribs 111 are provided in the first quadrant of the upper right corner. More preferably, the ribs 111 are positioned on a plane offset by a predetermined distance d1 from the vertical plane including the rotation axis C, in order to prevent interference with the dispensing tip at the time of dispensing.

It is preferable that the side end portion 111a of the rib 111 has an inclination with respect to the rotation axis C. [

The rib 111 may be formed with a lower end spaced apart from the bottom surface of the well 110 by a predetermined distance d2.

The conical well 110 having the protruding ribs 111 can provide an air exhaust structure for easily discharging air at the time of dispensing, thereby preventing bubbles from being generated at the time of dispensing.

Next, an experiment was conducted to confirm occurrence of bubbles by varying the frequency of occurrence of bubbles when the whole blood was injected into the reagent cartridge of the present invention at different sampling positions. As a comparative example, the same experiment was carried out by using the reagent cartridge in which the inner peripheral surface of the well was not formed with a rib.

As shown in Figs. 4 (a), 4 (b) and 4 (c), the tip 20 is positioned at the upper center position a of the well 110, the left side b opposite to the rib 111 And the right side surface (c) adjacent to the ribs 111, respectively. In the comparative example, whole blood was also dispensed at the same position to confirm whether bubbles were generated, and the results of the following Table 1 were obtained.

[Table 1 - Experimental Example 1]

As shown in Table 1, in the comparative example, bubbles are generated at 11 times out of the total 21 times, and it can be seen that bubbles are not generated in the present invention.

FIG. 5 and FIG. 6 are photographs showing results of a sample dispensing experiment for the present invention and a comparative example. FIG. 5 is a photograph showing the comparative example and the present invention in the case where the sample is injected in the middle (see FIG. 4A). In the comparative example, it is confirmed that bubbles are generated, while in the present invention, no bubbles are generated.

Next, FIG. 6 is a photograph showing the comparative example and the present invention when the sample is put on the left side (see FIG. 4B). In the present invention, the bubble can not be confirmed, but in the comparative example, have.

As another experimental example, a person who has generated the most errors in automatic inspection using a reagent cartridge was selected, and the person in charge was not informed about the reagent cartridge of the present invention in advance, and the reagent cartridge of the present invention and the reagent cartridge of the present invention were arbitrarily mixed A sample dispense was induced. 4). For reference, part of the reagent cartridge used in this experiment was reused (dried at room temperature for 3 days after re-aspiration of the sample solution after the dispensing test) The new reagent cartridge and the reused reagent cartridge were classified as 'Invention 1' and 'Invention 2', respectively.

[Table 2 - Experimental Example 2]

From the results shown in [Table 2], in the comparative example, 100% of bubbles were generated at the time of sample dispensing, but in the present invention, five times of bubbles were generated in 17 experiments. In this case, the reagent cartridge in which bubbles were generated was only reused It was confirmed that the size of the bubble was significantly smaller than that of the bubble generated in the comparative example.

7 (a) and 7 (b) are a plan view and a longitudinal sectional view of a well, which is a main component of a reagent cartridge according to another embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 7, a reagent cartridge according to another embodiment of the present invention includes a conical well 210 receiving a sample sample, and two or more ribs 211 (212 Is protruded.

The shape and structure of each of the ribs 211 and 212 are substantially the same as those of the previous embodiment (see FIG. 3). In this embodiment, a quadrant having a right angle with respect to the rotation axis C of the well 210 And the ribs 211 and 212 are formed in the quadrants (diagonal) of the diagonal direction.

For this example, two newborns were selected and 100 전 whole blood was injected to test whether bubbles were generated. Experiments were conducted on 50 inventive examples and 23 comparative examples.

[Table 3 - Experimental Example 3]

As can be seen in Table 3, in both of the novice users, 100% of the bubbles were generated in the comparative example, but the bubbles were not generated in the present invention.

As another experimental example, two beginners were selected, and 100 쨉 l of whole blood was injected into 50 reagent cartridges of the present invention, and then the presence or absence of bubbles was tested.

[Table 4 - Experimental Example 4]

As shown in Table 4, it can be seen that no bubble is generated in the sample dispensing process.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made in the present invention without departing from the spirit or scope of the inventions. It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art.

110, 210: well 111, 211, 212: rib

Claims

A reagent cartridge comprising a conical well that receives a sample of sample,
And a rib projecting from an inner peripheral surface of the well,
Characterized in that the rib is disposed on a plane offset from the longitudinal plane including the rotation axis (C) of the well and the lower tip is located on the bottom surface of the well and the side end portion is inclined with respect to the rotation axis (C) cartridge.

The reagent cartridge according to claim 1, wherein the ribs are formed at any one of quadrangles formed at an angle of 90 ° around a rotation axis (C) of the well.

The reagent cartridge according to claim 1, wherein the ribs are formed in each of the quadrants in the diagonal direction among the quadrants forming the angle of 90 ° about the rotation axis (C) of the well.

delete