Electrophysiological characterization of human iPSC-derived motor neurons using Qube 384 and QPatch

Human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) were developed a decade ago and hold great promise for disease modelling, drug discovery and personalized medicine, especially in cardiac and neurological diseases1. Dysfunctional ion channels are one of the major targets in these diseases and thus, as the iPSC technology improves, a requirement arises for instrumentation that can characterize electrophysiological properties of iPSCs in a high-throughput fashion. Here, we demonstrate the use of the automated patch clamp (APC) platforms Qube 384 and QPatch in three characterization studies of hiPSC motor neurons derived from patients and healthy individuals. The results include:

• APC recording of hiPSC-derived motor neurons with high success rates on Qube (60%) and QPatch (30%)
• Biophysical characterization of voltage-gated channels, Na⁺ (Na_V) and K⁺ (K_V), in healthy hiPSCs
• Measurements of a ligand-gated channel (GABAA receptor) in healthy control cells
• Screening of hiPSC motor neurons derived from Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) patients
• Comparison of hiPSC motor neurons derived from two different healthy individuals