Characterization of the rapidly-desensitizing α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor using the Qube

The ligand-gated alpha7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (α7 nAChR) plays an intricate role as part of the excitatory cholinergic response in the nervous system. Due to its major function in not only serving a primary immune response but also its direct link to multiple neurological disorders, α7-directed targeted therapies are critical in addressing an unmet need in health and human disease.

However, the ability of the channel to rapidly desensitize after channel activation makes α7 one of the most difficult ion channels to study using both conventional as well as automated patch-clamp (APC) platforms. Recently, both 1Friis et Al. (2009) and 2Hao et Al. (2015) demonstrated that α7 can be studied on the QPatch.

This study further demonstrates that the Qube, the 384-channel high-throughput APC platform, can also be used to record the α7 nAChR. We thus clearly show the Qube as an extremely versatile instrument both in drug discovery and studying various ion channel biophysics