APPARATUS FOR REAL-TIME SIMULTANEOUS MONITORING OF MULTIPLE NUCLEIC ACID AMPLIFICATIONS Russian patent published in 2011 - IPC G01N21/64 

FIELD: chemistry.

SUBSTANCE: apparatus uses a polymerase chain reaction method in real time. The apparatus has a thermocycler, having a heat conducting element on which there are depressions for test tubes with reaction mixtures, a thermal cover, and an automatic temperature control device. The apparatus also has an optical system which includes a radiation source, coaxial fibre-optic light guides for transmitting excitation light from the source and fluorescence radiation from the test tubes. The apparatus also has a fluorescence detector. The central part of the light guide which transmits excitation light is aperture-matched with the amount of reaction mixture in the test tubes in the depressions on the heat conducting element. The volume of the test tubes corresponds to maximum volume of the reaction mixture. Between the test tubes and the thermal cover there is removable heat insulating partition with openings, the axes of which coincide with axes of the test tubes, and the diameters are equal to the outer diametre of the light guides for transmitting fluorescence radiation from the test tubes. The aperture-matching of the central part of the light guide with the amount of the reaction mixture in the test tube satisfies the condition l=l₁+l₂ and α=α_m, where l is the distance from the face of the central part of the light guide to the reaction mixture; l₁ is the vertical dimension of the removable heat insulating partition; l₂ is the distance from the removable heat insulating partition to the reaction mixture; α is the aperture angle of the illumination part of the light guide; α_m is the maximum aperture angle of the illumination part of the light guide.

EFFECT: cutting analysis time, high sensitivity of the apparatus and reducing the need to carry out polymerase chain reaction in the amount of the reaction mixture.

7 cl, 7 dwg