Ion channels play critical role in the human body and are relevant to various diseases. Although the ion channel presents attractive molecules for the new drug targets, marketed drugs targeting ion channels comprise only about 5% of all pharmaceutical products. Factors for the difficulty in developing ion channel blockers are as follows:
- Highly expert skills and technology are required for ion channel assays.
- Hurdles for the reliable assays with reasonable throughput are extremely high due to several difficulties, including handling cells and reading the signals of assays.
With advanced skills and a historical experience, specialists at RaQualia have a proven track record of discovery research targeting ion channels. Furthermore, to improve throughput in screening, RaQualia has collaborated with Hamamatsu Photonics in developing an original ion channel assay system, i.e., the EFS-FRET Assay System.
"Ion channels" are membrane proteins which allow the passage of ions across cell membranes. They play a crucial role in regulating the transmission of information in sensory and motor nerves and in the release of neurotransmitters in various tissues.
EFS-FRET is the ion channel assay system co-developed by RaQualia and Hamamatsu Photonics. It enables highly accurate ion channel assays and acquires approximately 1,000 data points per day at low cost.
＊EFS：Electric Field Stimulation
Manual patch clamping assay is the most standard electrophysiological experiment enabling observation of the ion channel function. Although the assay is highly reliable, it is a low -throughput assay and requires advanced experimental skill and experience.
QPatch HTX automates manual patch clamping experiments. Because of its assay principle, this testing system produces more comparable data than those obtained in manual patch clamping. This system improves the throughput of manual patch clamping and the assay quality of EFS-FRET.
This electrophysiological testing technology enables recording of neuronal activity of peripheral nerve tissues. It allows evaluation of drug efficacy and mechanism of the target molecule in the physiologically relevant conditions.
