This invention relates to a
reagent container for detection and / or quantitation of at least one biological or chemical
analyte from a sample, said
reagent container comprising an inner surface enclosing a volume, wherein volume analytical reactions of at least one analysis for detection and / or quantitation of at least one
analyte take place, and at least two reagents of an analysis of an
analyte have been dried onto said inner surface and at least a first said
reagent has been dried onto a first area of the inner surface distinctly separate, i.e. without any overlap, from a second area of the inner surface onto which at least a second said reagent has been dried. Characteristic for the reagent container is that the first reagent and the second reagent form a pair wherein the first reagent is an
enzyme and the second reagent is a substrate of said
enzyme, and said pair consists of a
nucleic acid polymerase and substrate thereof. This invention also relates to a method for stabilising onto an inner surface of a reagent container dried
assay reagents for the detection and / or quantitation of a biological or chemical analyte from a sample, said method comprising the steps of dispensing at least two reagents, a first reagent and a second reagent, needed in the detection of the analyte onto the inner surface of the reagent container; and removing
excess water from the reagents, wherein first reagent is dispensed onto a first area of the inner surface distinctly separate, i.e. without any overlap, from a second area of the inner surface onto which the second reagent is dispensed. Characteristic for the method is that the first reagent and the second reagent form a pair wherein the first reagent is an
enzyme and the second reagent is a substrate of said enzyme, and said pair consist of a
nucleic acid polymerase and substrate thereof. This invention further relates to the use of the reagent container to perform an
assay selected from the group consisting of a
polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
assay, an assay that utilizes a
reverse transcriptase, a reverse transriptase
polymerase chain reaction, an immuno-
PCR assay, a
nucleic acid sequence based assay (
NASBA), a proximity
ligation assay, a
ligase chain reaction (LCR) assay, a rolling circle amplification (RCA) assay, and a strand displacement amplification (SDA) assay.