BACKGROUND

The present disclosure relates to an analysis device and an analysis method for analyzing biomaterials such as antigens and antibodies.

Immunoassays are known to quantitatively analyze disease detection and therapeutic effects by detecting particular antigens or antibodies as biomarkers associated with diseases.

Japanese Translation of PCT International Application Publication No. 2002-521666 (hereinafter, referred to as Patent Document 1) and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-322819 (hereinafter, referred to as Patent Document 2) disclose an analysis device in which antibodies that are fixed to a reaction region on a substrate of an optical disc are allowed to bind to antigens in a specimen, and the antigens are labeled by nanoparticles having antibodies and then are scanned with laser light emitted from an optical pickup so as to detect the nanoparticles captured on the reaction region on the substrate.

The analysis device disclosed in Patent Documents 1 and 2 is an optical disc device utilized for detecting a specimen.

SUMMARY

The conventional analysis device as disclosed in Patent Documents 1 and 2 moves the optical pickup in a radial direction of the substrate being rotated. The substrate is provided with a plurality of reaction regions. Therefore, a reaction region in which nanoparticles are detected needs to be specified.

The analysis device disclosed in Patent Document 1 specifies a reaction region by use of address information of the optical disc. In the analysis device disclosed in Patent Document 2, the substrate includes a group of pits in which positional information of reaction regions is recorded.

The conventional analysis device as disclosed in Patent Documents 1 and 2 thus needs to preliminarily record the positional information of the reaction regions on the substrate of the optical disc. Accordingly, the process of manufacturing the substrate is complicated to increase manufacturing costs for the substrate.

A first aspect of one or more embodiments provides an analysis device including: a turntable holding a substrate having a plurality of reaction regions for capturing nanoparticles to be analyzed; a turntable drive unit configured to rotate the turntable; a turntable drive circuit configured to control the turntable drive unit; an optical pickup driven in a direction perpendicular to a rotation axis of the turntable, and configured to emit laser light to the respective reaction regions and receive reflected light from the respective reaction regions; an optical pickup drive circuit configured to control an operation of the optical pickup; and a controller configured to control the turntable drive circuit and the optical pickup drive circuit, wherein the plurality of reaction regions are formed at positions different from a center of the substrate, the substrate is held by the turntable such that the center is located on the rotation axis of the turntable, the optical pickup drive circuit detects a position of the turntable in the direction perpendicular to the rotation axis of the turntable to generate a positional information signal, the optical pickup detects a reception level of the reflected light from the respective reaction regions to generate a light reception level signal, and the controller controls the turntable drive circuit to rotate the substrate, controls the optical pickup drive circuit to move the optical pickup in the direction perpendicular to the rotation axis of the turntable, and specifies the respective reaction regions in accordance with the positional information signal and the light reception level signal.

A second aspect of one or more embodiments provides an analysis method including: rotating a substrate of which a center is a rotation axis, the substrate having a plurality of reaction regions formed at positions different from the center of the substrate to capture nanoparticles to be analyzed; emitting laser light to the respective reaction regions from a predetermined position in a direction perpendicular to the rotation axis of the substrate and receiving reflected light from the respective reaction regions; and specifying the respective reaction regions in accordance with positional information on the predetermined position and a reception level of the reflected light.

