Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Lab Chip. 2012 Jan 7;12(1):80-7. doi: 10.1039/c1lc20636b. Epub 2011 Oct 21.
High-throughput screening of ion channels is now possible with the advent of the planar patch clamp system. This system drastically increases the number of ion channels that can be studied, as multiple ion channel experiments can now be conducted in parallel. However, due to tedious, usually pressure-driven mechanotransduction techniques, there has been a slow integration of this technology into the field of mechanosensitive ion channels. By implementing a piezoelectric quartz substrate into a planar patch clamp system, we show that the patch clamp substrate itself can be used to mechanically actuate ion channels. The piezoelectric substrate transduces an external, applied electric field into a mechanical tension, so precise actuation of the membrane can be accomplished. By applying this electric field only to the outer edges of the substrate, no ulterior electric field is created in the vicinity of the membrane during actuation. Further, with resonant frequencies ranging from 1 kHz to 200 MHz, quartz substrates can be used to apply a wide range of time-varying tensions to cell membranes. This will allow for new and instructive investigations into the dynamic mechanotransductive properties of ion channels.
高通量筛选离子通道现在可以通过平面片钳系统的出现来实现。该系统大大增加了可以研究的离子通道数量，因为现在可以并行进行多个离子通道实验。然而，由于繁琐的、通常是压力驱动的机械转导技术，该技术在机械敏感离子通道领域的整合一直很缓慢。通过将压电石英基板引入平面片钳系统，我们证明了片钳基板本身可以用于机械驱动离子通道。压电基板将外部施加的电场转换为机械张力，因此可以精确地驱动膜。通过仅将电场施加到基板的外边缘，在驱动过程中不会在膜附近产生额外的电场。此外，石英基板的共振频率范围从 1 kHz 到 200 MHz，可以施加广泛的时变张力到细胞膜上。这将允许对离子通道的动态机械转导特性进行新的和有启发性的研究。
