Chemical apparatus and process disinfecting – deodorizing – preser – Control element responsive to a sensed operating condition
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-23
2003-09-23
Warden, Jill (Department: 1743)
Chemical apparatus and process disinfecting, deodorizing, preser
Control element responsive to a sensed operating condition
C422S091000, C422S105000, C435S283100, C435S288300, C435S288500, C436S174000, C436S180000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06623701
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a specimen chamber for the liquid treatment of at least one specimen, in particular a throughflow chamber, for the liquid treatment of biological specimens, such as, for example, a throughflow chamber for detecting the presence of nucleic acids and proteins by means of gensonde hybridisation or by means of antibodies.
PRIOR ART
Genomes of animals and plants contain genes in the order of size of 10
5
, which are expressed in a specific manner. Knowledge of the gene expression in the tissues which form an organism is of fundamental significance in the understanding of the physiology and patho-physiology of a living being. Interest pertains in the expression analysis in individual biological cells. This is achieved by in-situ hybridisation (hereinafter ISH), in combination with immune histochemical processes. In addition to this, in this connection the hybridisation and representation of DNA microarrays is also of interest.
The term ISH is understood to mean the hybridisation of the genomic DNA or DNA generated by RT-PCR, or RNA synthesised in vitro, and, on the other hand, the hybridisation of cellular mRNA. From the principle of ISH, which is today generally described in text books, and which was first described by M. L. Pardue, a process has now developed which is carried out in laboratories all over the world, with a large number of manually-performed individual stages. Major factors of the process are nucleic acid hybrid formation and the evidencing of the hybrids. For the formation of hybrids, the specimens, which include sections of tissue with plant or animal cells, are subjected to liquid reagents under precisely controlled temperature conditions and in accordance with predetermined time programmes. An ISH may comprise 50 individual stages, for example, in which situation, at each individual stage, the tissue specimen must, within a few seconds, be brought to a predetermined temperature in the range from, for example, 4° C. to 100° C. with a precision of ±1° C., and subjected to predetermined reagents. Both with regard to the time expenditure and with regard to the precision of the performance of the process, the manual procedure used hitherto is no longer suited to the demands for the processing of large numbers of specimens (“high throughput” processes), which may involve hundreds or even thousands of prepared specimens.
With the aim of automating the ISH, throughflow chambers have been developed which are designed to contain tissue specimens or microarrays and carry out their liquid processing. An example of a conventional throughflow chamber
10
′, which is marketed by the company of Shandon Southern Instruments Ltd., Great Britain, is illustrated in
FIG. 12
(prior art). The throughflow chamber
10
′ is based essentially on a combination of a cover plate arrangement
20
′ and a carrier plate
30
′, in which situation the cover plate arrangement
20
′ features on its intake side a hopper-shaped extension
21
′ to take in the processing liquids. A tissue specimen is placed in the space between the cover plate arrangement
20
′ and the carrier plate
30
′, and fixed in position there. The combination of the cover plate arrangement
20
′ and the carrier plate
30
′ is located in a cassette (not shown). For the liquid processing, the individual reagents are introduced via the extension
21
′. Although the throughflow chamber
10
′ allows for automatic use using pipetting robots, it suffers from the following disadvantages, which excludes its use for the ISH described heretofore, or restricts it to specific and less demanding process protocols.
Due to the complicated structure of the chamber sections with the outer cassette, temperature of the conventional throughflow chamber cannot be controlled in a reproducable manner. In addition to this, with the conventional throughflow chamber according to
FIG. 12
, the cover plate arrangement
20
′ consists of a plastic which is not form-resistant if used at temperatures above 60° C. which occur during ISH. Accordingly, the reproducibility of the reagent throughflow is limited. In addition, the design of the cover plate arrangement
20
′ and the chemical composition of the cover plate renders impossible the uniform flow of the solutions containing formamide, used in the ISH, with the result that a spatially inhomogeneous hybridisation reaction arises, in which, for example, air bubbles occur or tissue particles or specimens float around. The combination of plastic with glass materials, too, for the formation of the chamber walls, excludes the possibility of reproducible temperature control.
In general, none of the generally known specimen or throughflow chambers are suitable for the analysis of DNA microarrays, in particular with processes with high throughput. Even if the specimen chambers for tissue specimens used hitherto in the laboratory sector has been capable of thermostatic adjustment, automatic reagent exchange is impossible. The manual loading of specimens with manual pipettes, however, is unsuitable for processes with high throughput.
SUMMARY OF INVENTION
The object of the invention is to provide an improved specimen chamber for liquid treatment of specimens, of which the temperature control is reliable and reproducible, and which will be form-resistant even at repeated temperature adjustment, and which, in particular, will allow for automatic process treatment in the throughflow principle even at high specimen throughput (about 100 to 500 per passage).
The basic idea of the invention particularly consists of the provision of a specimen chamber consisting of a base plate and a carrier plate, which are separated from one another by a predetermined interval by spacer elements, and are held together by means of a frame arrangement. The base and carrier plates have, for preference, the same surface area. In the assembled state they form an aligned packing unit, as a result of which the interval between the plates forms a receptacle or accommodation for the specimen. Given the design of the specimen chamber as a throughflow chamber, the accommodation (cutout) is open to two mutually opposed sides for the formation of an intake or an outlet, and closed to the other sides in a fluid-tight manner. To achieve this, the spacer elements run in strip form between the two edges of the base plate and carrier plate, aligned relative to one another, between the intake and the outlet. The base plate tapers at the intake (the thickness of the plate is reduced towards the end of the plate), to form a reservoir between the base plate and the carrier plate.
In the frame arrangement, the base plate and the carrier plate are held together aligned to one another. To provide for mutual fixation of the plates in the frame arrangement, provision is made for a clamp device, which on the one hand encompasses the frame arrangement, and, on the other, encompasses the plates arranged in it, creating a uniform compression tension. Under the effect of the compression tension, the cutout formed between the base plate and the carrier plate for the specimen is closed laterally along the spacer element, in a liquid-tight manner. The frame arrangement is also equipped with a hang-up device, which is designed to bring the throughflow chamber to a contact platform of a temperature control device.
The base and carrier plates of the specimen chamber according to the invention consist for preference of the same material, or of similar materials with regard to their thermal properties. This improves the temperature control, avoids deformations, and also causes the flow properties of the treatment liquids flowing through to be uniform at the taking of the specimen. The plates are for preference made of glass or, depending on the application, of a temperature-resistant plastic or quartz glass.
A subject of the invention is also a temperature adjustment device (referred to as a thermoblock) with a large number of temperature-ad
Eichele Gregor
Herzig Uwe
Handy Dwayne R
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Forderung der Wissenschaften e.V.
Nields & Lemack
Warden Jill
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