Ion Channel Assays

Ion channels have been implicated in many diseases including hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias, gastrointestinal disorders, cystic fibrosis, pathological pain, cancer, and immune disorders. As a result, ion channels represent an attractive and promising class of targets for drug discovery research.  However, the promise of ion channels as a drug target class has not been fully realized due to a historical lack of affordable, high-throughput analysis methods.

Automated and manual patch clamp assays are considered the gold standard for assaying ion channel targets, but the manual patch clamp assay is too slow and labor intensive to use as a primary screen and the cost of using automated electrophysiology for screening large, diverse chemical libraries is high compared to the cost using a FLIPR® System assay. A much faster and affordable method for screening applications uses voltage-sensitive dyes on the FLIPR System. However, traditional dyes have several limitations including slow response times and temperature sensitivity. The FLIPR Membrane Potential Assay Kits from Molecular Devices deliver higher throughput than previous automated FLIPR System protocols while showing good correlation with manual patch clamp data.

Please use the links below to learn more about ion channel assays, and how we can support the success of your drug discovery and life science research efforts.