Automated Patch Clamp – Efficient and Highly Scalable Mechanistic Characterization of Ion Channel Function in Drug Discovery

February 3, 2019

Ion channels regulate a variety of physiological processes and represent the 2nd largest class of known drug targets. Among the known methods to study ion channels, patch clamp electrophysiology and its automated versions, automated patch clamp (APC), still represent the gold standard with unsurpassed precision for ion channel functional assays. However, due to the complexity of electrophysiological data, the lack of robust standard data analysis methods became the major bottleneck for high-throughput APC application. This poster illustrates how a collaboration between Genentech and Genedata has extended the boundaries of SyncroPatch APC data analysis throughput and complexity. The elements of this achievement are:
1) A data parser for raw instrument recordings, allowing for near instantaneous data analysis upon data capture, including voltage-current data from the Nanion SyncroPatch 768PE instrument,
2) A high-performing implementation of Boltzmann fitting models to infer half-activation voltage and half-inactivation voltage shifts between pre- and post-compound conditions,
3) Embedding of a workflow providing visual and statistical quality control of result quality on various levels, considering the four key parameters seal resistance, peak current, capacitance, and series resistance.