Robot speeds up ion channel research
speeds up drug development and could reduce the number of animals
needed in research.
The Flyscreen 8500 robot fully automates the 'patch clamp' method, commonly-used for measuring currents flowing through ion channels in cell membranes. Patch clamping, which looks at the entry or exit of ions through these channels, is used for testing compounds and side effects of pharmaceuticals.
Ion channels play an important role in cell signalling, electrical excitability and fluid transport, and are drug targets themselves in a number of indications, including heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune diseases and migraine. Small molecules that block or open ion channels are considered to be promising drug candidates.
In addition, some ion channels on heart muscle cells are associated with toxicology problems, and candidates drugs are routinely screened against them.
The Flyscreen 8500 system provides an automated approach to what is traditional a predominantly manual technique. Patch clamping requires considerable experimental skills and is time-consuming and expensive, notes flyion.
"Conventional patch clamping requires a microscope with an anti-vibration table and a micromanipulator and considerable experimental skills," said the company.
Using the system, "hundreds of measurements can be performed per day. This represents a more than tenfold throughput in comparison to the traditional technique and at a considerably lower cost," said flyion. The only operator input needed with the robot is replacement of compound plates and tip trays and refilling cell suspension.
Given the fact that pharmaceutical companies have to screen thousands of candidate substances during the drug development process, high-throughput, high-quality and cost-effective patch clamping is becoming increasingly important, claims flyion. And the automation of this process enables researchers to gather scientific information from single cultured cells, reducing the number of laboratory animals needed in the later stages of drug research.
The Flyscreen 8500 incorporates an array of receptacles for disposableglass recording tips embedded in a moulded plastic jacket. Unlike in conventional patch clamp techniques, the inside of the recording tips is automatically flushed with cell suspension.
Single cells make contact with the glass surface at the lower tip opening and the cell membrane is disrupted by suction pulses or perforated by pore-forming agents (perforated patch). The individual tips then are replaced until every single position in the array contains an optimal cell preparation.
Another major advantage of flyion's robot is that after a control current is taken, automated liquid handling allows the addition and removal of compound solutions which directly access the extracellular membrane surface.
The system is already configured for scaleable screening of voltage-gated sodium and potassium ion channels and will be supplemented by special tips for analysis of ligand-gated ion channels during the second quarter of 2004.
