Excitement Over Automated Patch Clamp: Action Potentials from Cardiac Myocytes

The use of cardiac myocytes is becoming increasingly important for drug safety testing. Unique features of certain planar patch clamp workstations, coupled with ease-of-use and higher data throughput, make these devices ideal tools for ion channel screening and safety testing. Using stem cell derived cardiac myocytes, recordings could be made not only in the voltage-clamp mode but also in the current-clamp mode on a planar patch clamp workstation. This demonstrates for the first time parallel current-clamp recordings on a planar patch clamp workstation. Ion channels important in drug discovery, such as hERG and voltage-gated Na+, Ca2+ and K+ channels in the voltage-clamp mode from stem cell derived cardiac myocytes will be shown. In addition, action potential recordings in the current-clamp mode at 35°C, and modulation of the action potentials by hERG active compounds, will also be shown.View Large Image | View Hi-Res Image | Download PowerPoint Slide