Pressure control valves from Festo have been an integral part of the automated patch clamp solutions from Danish company Sophion Bioscience for over 15 years. Thanks to the high precision of the new proportional valve terminal VTEP, the ion channels of human cells can be studied even more accurately. The resulting high degree of standardization of the tests enables faster development of drugs, and research into possible side effects.
Almost a third of all diseases are caused by malfunctions in the ion channels of cells. Ion channels comprise a diverse and extensive category of membrane proteins that function as so-called transducers for electrical signals, and regulate the electrical properties of all living cells. For example, ion channels play a central role in the generation of action potentials in excitable cells, such as those found in the heart and brain.
With its patch-clamp systems, Sophion is accelerating the development of drugs that can alleviate or eliminate channelopathies such as cystic fibrosis, epilepsy, or heart arrhythmia.
The automated solution replaces the traditional, very time-consuming manual method of patch clamping. Patch clamping is used to directly measure the movement of ions through cell membranes via ion channels. The cell membrane is tightly sealed with a pipette or a small hole in a surface. By applying a slight vacuum, the inner contents of the cell and the solution come into direct contact so that electrodes can measure very small electrical currents that flow across the cell membrane through the ion channels. This examination process can not only be significantly accelerated by automation, but the high precision of the processes also means that the results of the examination are much more stable.
The new systems allow the simultaneous measurement of 8, 16, 48 or 384 cells, giving researchers more replicates, and more data for research, characterization, or even screening.
Sophion and Festo have been working together successfully for many years. For its current semi-automatic 8-channel system, Festo was a project partner right from the outset. The proportional valve terminal VTEP with its extremely fast communication protocols and high precision in the range of ±2 mbar precisely fulfilled the requirements of the developers for the new system. This is because maximum precision is fundamental to making the experiments work.
If too little pressure is applied, the cell membrane will not break. If the pressure is too high, the cell collapses. Proportional valve terminals with piezo technology such as VTEP are therefore ideal for sensitive work on human cells.
Another advantage of theproportional valve terminal is its compactness, which is all down to the piezo valves used. The small and compact pressure regulators are perfectly suited for installation in Sophion instruments. Depending on the configuration, automated patch clamp systems use 12 to 54 independent pressure channels that are controlled by up to six valve terminals.
The systems are convincing:
According to Sophion, 75% of the world's 20 largest pharmaceutical companies and many universities use Sophion's solutions for drug development.
Sophion Bioscience is a leading global life science company with headquarters in Denmark and subsidiaries in the USA, Japan and China. The company specializes in the development and production of automated patch clamp systems and cell line solutions. Sophion was founded in 2000 by a group of dedicated electrophysiologists. Their aim was to make patch clamping objective and independent of the user's knowledge. Sophion Bioscience provides its partners with technical, biological and application-related support in the research of ion channels and the development of new drugs.