METHOD FOR HIGH THROUGHPUT SCREENING OF NUCLEIC ACIDS

摘要

A scalable reaction and detection system for automated high throughput sequencing of nucleic acids involving a combination of chemical processes and observation processes independent of the chemistry processes. Discrete functional units may be configured in a manner that allows the system to interchangeably utilize different sequencing reaction components in conjunction with discrete apparatus components for optical image collection and/or analysis.

主权项

1. An automated method of high-throughput nucleic acid sequencing, comprising the following steps:
placing one or more flow cells on a reaction platform, each flow cell comprising a plurality of distinguishable reaction sites and a plurality of nucleic acid samples attached to the plurality of reaction sites; introducing a processing reagent into the flow cells; reacting the processing reagent with the nucleic acid samples for a processing period to perform sequencing reactions producing fluorescent sequencing products; transferring each of the flow cells from the reaction platform using a carrying device to a position within the viewing area of a detection subsystem configured for capturing optical images of the flow cells; illuminating each of the flow cells in the viewing area to cause the fluorescent sequencing products to fluoresce in distinguishable spectra at the distinguishable reaction sites; and capturing a color image of fluorescence from the distinguishable reaction sites in the flow cells to identify nucleic acid sequences of the nucleic acid samples; wherein a sample preparation in the reacting step and data extraction in the capturing step occur at different rates.