QPatch Compact – Semiautomated Patch Clamp

Designed for tailored ion channel research and education

QPatch Compact provides affordable access to high-fidelity electrophysiological data without the hassle required to set up, maintain and master a manual rig.

Automated efficiency with manual control

QPatch® Compact is a flexible semi-automated patch clamp solution, allowing complete control of gigaseal ion channel recordings in up to 8 cells in parallel. The bench-top system offers an effortless and accurate patch clamp experience with minimum set-up and maintenance required. It is ideal for busy laboratories that require higher throughput than manual patch clamping can provide or laboratories that need electrophysiology data but do not have trained patch clampers.

With up to 8 sites in parallel, QPatch Compact provides sufficient throughput to rapidly obtain replicas and fuels data generation for your next publication – or medicinal chemistry program. In addition, it has proven to be a valuable tool for graduate and postgraduate teaching.

QPatch Compact offers:

  • Giga-Ω seal in physiological Ringer’s solutions – no need for seal enhancers or fluoride
  • Water-based temperature control at each measurement site
  • Recording in up to 8 cells asynchronously in parallel
  • Sophion’s unique adaptive current clamp feature
  • Manual liquid additions supported by light and audio guidance
  • On the run changing of protocols
  • Sophion Analyzer is designed for easy and automated data analysis

Also, the unique design of the QPlates ensures consistent quality recordings time after time:

  • Fast and complete liquid exchange via microfluidic channels
  • Glass surfaces to prevent adherence of sticky compounds
  • Ready-to-use individual electrode pairs – no need to ever re-chloride electrodes again

Discover how QPatch Compact can help you?

QPatch Compact is designed for busy laboratories that need quick access to patch-clamp data and lack the time or patience to master the art of operating a manual patch-clamp rig. With QPatch Compact, anyone can learn to patch-clamp in less than half an hour.

Take full advantage of QPatch Compact depending on your daily working requirements:

I am a manual patch clamper
I am a drug discovery professional
I am a planar patch clamper

Automated electrophysiology with manual pipetting

The guided workflow for QPatch Compact makes it easy to learn and understand. With QPatch Compact, we claim that any lab-trained staff can learn how to patch clamp in less than ½ an hour.

The ease of use combined with the manual handling also makes the instrument well suited for educational purposes.

QPC-experiment-workflow

The colour blue denotes steps with physical interaction, inserting or adding plates or liquids to the rig. Throughput, metadata, compounds and protocols are added and selected on the responsive user interface, which also continuously provides information about cell status and experimental results so that e-phys protocols can be adapted and changed on the go.

Click here to view the illustration in full size

Key QPatch Compact functionalities

Adaptive whole cell protocols

All cells are different, and they should be treated accordingly. QPatch Compact includes individual whole-cell protocols to increase whole-cell rates and ultimately the success rate for your experiment. Read more

Adaptive current clamp

The main challenge with current clamp on automated patch clamp platforms is the variation in sealing and resting membrane potential from cell to cell. This makes it impossible to design one current clamp protocol to work on all cells. We have solved that with our unique Adaptive Current Clamp feature. Read more

Adaptive voltage clamp

Optimize voltage clamp protocols individually for each cell’s electrical properties. The QPatch Compact system will automatically perform Boltzmann fits for each cell online. This is to estimate the cell-specific voltage needed to activate X% of the receptor population or the voltage that keeps X% of the cells in an inactivated state. Read more

Temperature control

With the temperature control add-on, you can perform experiments at controlled physiological temperatures. Thereby, reducing fluctuations caused by temperature changes in your laboratory environment and thus ensuring higher repeatability and reproducibility. Read more

Rs compensation

Series resistance compensation for fast-activating ion channels can help remove voltage clamp errors and improve clamp accuracy. All Sophion’s patch-clamp amplifiers utilize a patented technology enabling up to 100% Rs compensation. Read more

Sophion Analyzer software

Advanced and customized analysis of your data can be performed immediately after your data has been collected. Sophion Analyzer can analyze thousands of data points automatically and present the results according to your requirements. Read more

QPlate microflow based glass consumables using single & multi-hole technology

QPlates are based on microfluidic principles to ensure fast and complete liquid exchange, pre-defined compound concentration, and low compound consumption. Our QPlates come with one patch hole per measurement site or 10 patch holes per measurement site. Read more

Contact us to learn more

  • "We wanted to work with individual cells and be able to halt experiments and adjust the protocol if a patch is stable. This flexibility in the workflow is really attractive for us with the QPatch Compact."

    Anders Riisager, Senior Scientist, NMD Pharma A/S

  • "With QPatch Compact, we get the perfect balance of control and automation at a throughput that suits our experiments. QPatch Compact enables us to ask better questions."

    Martin Gruwier Broch-Lips, Head of Biological Research, NMD Pharma A/S

  • "The QPatch Compact user interface and software is very powerful in getting throughput, and it enables you to set up protocols and templates in your analysis and then it quickly gives you the data points you need."

    Anders Riisager, Senior Scientist, NMD Pharma A/S

  • "With Sophion, everything is very professional and straightforward, something we greatly appreciate."

    Angelika Lampert, University Professor, Principal investigator at Uniklinik RWTH Aachen

  • "Our collaboration with Sophion and access to their expertise is a real-world example of what you can achieve with automated patch clamping and an expert supplier."

    Fredrik Elinder, Professor, Linköping University, Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Division of Neurobiology

Sophion customer case stories

With the help of our automated patch clamp solutions, we have asked our customers how they use the technology to shape their future.

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We strive to provide the best for our customers, and we are always ready to help. Please let us know if you have a question for us.

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