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•Application Note: Ion Channel Assay Development Using Invitrogen's FRET-Based Voltage Sensor Probes

Ion channels are important drug targets because of their critical role in nerve, cardiac, endocrine and skeletal muscle tissues. The lack of sufficiently sensitive screening systems has hampered research in this area. This application note focuses on Voltage Sensor Probes (VSP), a Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET)-based voltage-sensing assay technology from Invitrogen for measuring changes in cellular membrane electrical potential.

This technology enables detection and measurement of rapid changes in membrane voltage and quickly reports them as fluorescence signals from living cells. This technology can be used with any target that changes membrane potential, and is therefore well suited for sodium, potassium, calcium, chloride and ligand-gated ion channel research. The ratiometric method used to detect and quantify changes in cellular membrane potential significantly reduces errors arising from well-to-well variations in cell number, dye loading and signal intensities, plate inconsistencies and temperature fluctuations. These combined features make VSP technology highly amenable for high-throughput screening (HTS) applications.

In order to develop and validate an ion channel assay prior to HTS, it would be helpful for assay development and therapeutic groups to have access to less expensive equipment amenable to VSP technology. This application note demonstrates the use of the POLARstar OPTIMA and NOVOstar plate readers from BMG LABTECH as suitable platforms for development of VSP ion channel assays. These plate readers are much less expensive than HTS ion channel readers and can be used for multiple detection technologies.

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•Application Note: Ion Channel Assay Development Using Invitrogen's FRET-Based Voltage Sensor Probes

SOURCE: BMG LABTECH, GmbH