Flow cell liquid degassing system and method
AssigneeIllumina, Inc.
InventorBradley Kent Drews
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system utilizes a flow cell for holding an analyte of interest for examination, such as a genetic material to be imaged for sequencing. Liquids, such as reagents and washing fluids are introduced into the flow cell during operations. A degasser removes gasses from at least some of the liquids before introduction into the flow cell. The liquids may be resident in the flow cell during detection operations, such as imaging. At least one fluid may be moved bidirectionally into and from the flow cell, such as for reuse. Another fluid may be moved unidirectionally through the flow cell to remove bubbles that may be present in the system.
Claims20
A system comprising:
- flow paths to fluidically connect with a flow cell to support an analyte of interest;
- a selector valve fluidically coupled to the flow paths, the selector valve configured to select a liquid recipient from a plurality of liquid recipients and to receive a liquid from the selected liquid recipient to introduce into the flow paths;
- a pump to be fluidically coupled to the flow cell;
- a degassing system configured to degas the selected liquid prior to introduction or re-introduction of the selected liquid into the flow cell;
- and
- control circuitry operatively coupled to the selector valve and the pump, the control circuitry having one or more processors and a memory that stores machine-executable instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, control the one or more processors to cause the selector valve to select the selected liquid recipient and the pump to aspirate the selected liquid from the selected liquid recipient into the flow cell.
A system comprising:
- flow paths to fluidically connect with a flow cell to support an analyte of interest;
- an imaging system to image the analyte supported in the flow cell;
- a selector valve fluidically coupled to the flow paths, the selector valve configured to select between liquid recipients of a plurality of liquid recipients containing respective liquids and to select first and second liquids of the liquids from the respective liquid recipients to introduce into the flow cell;
- a pump to be fluidically coupled to the flow cell to draw the selected first and second liquids from the respective recipients into the flow cell;
- a degassing system configured to degas the selected first and second liquids prior to introduction into the flow cell;
- and
- control circuitry operatively coupled to the one or more selector valves and the pump, the control circuitry having one or more processors and a memory that stores machine-executable instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, control the one or more processors to cause the selector valve to separately select the liquid recipients for the first liquid and the second liquid and the pump to draw the first liquid and the second liquid from the respective liquid recipients into the flow cell.
A method comprising:
- using a selector valve to select a liquid recipient from a plurality of liquid recipients, the selected liquid recipient containing a liquid for introduction into a flow cell containing an analyte of interest;
- aspirating the liquid from the selected liquid recipient and into the flow cell;
- and
- degassing the aspirated liquid before the aspirated liquid is introduced into the flow cell.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.