Fast desensitizing ion channels recorded on Qube 384

Some ligand gated ion channels have a tendency to desensitize over time, making it difficult to establish a stable assay baseline. Rapid compound washout can counteract desensitization by reducing ligand exposure time to a minimum.

On Qube 384 the minimum washout is now less than 1 second (0.8 s), enabling stable assay for fast desensitizing ion channels.

With nAChRa1 as model, acetyl choline as agonist and tetracaine as test compound, a stable and high performance assay was established with:

• Ligand exposure time 0.8 s
• Whole-cell resistance of average 1.2 GΩ
• Overall success rate of 89%
• Very tight data – CV of ≤ 9% for control rows and columns
• Z’ > 0.70
• No desensitization observed

You can read the whole report here.