Pressure regulators from Festo have been an integral part of the automated patch clamp solutions of the Danish company Sophion Bioscience for over 15 years. The high precision of the new proportional valve terminal VTEP further enhances the analysis of the ion channels of human cells. As a result of the high degree of standardisation of the analyses, drug development and research into the possible side effects can be carried out more quickly.
Almost a third of all diseases are caused by malfunctions in the ion channels of cells. Ion channels are composed of diverse and extensive 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 generating 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 cardiac arrhythmia.
The automated solution replaces the traditional and 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 contents of the cell and the solution come into direct contact; the electrodes can then measure very small electrical currents that flow across the cell membrane through the ion channels. Not only can this process be significantly accelerated by automation, but the high precision of the automated processes also means that the analysis results are much more stable.
The new systems enable 8, 16, 48 or 384 cells to be measured simultaneously, giving researchers more replicates and more data for research, characterisation, or even screening.