All-Optical Miniaturized Co-culture Assay of Voltage-Gated Ca Channels.

Methods Mol Biol

Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI), Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia.

Published: March 2021

Light-activated proteins enable the reversible and spatiotemporal control of cellular events in optogenetics. Optogenetics is also rapidly expanding into the field of drug discovery where it provides cost-effective and noninvasive approaches for cell manipulation in high-throughput screens. Here, we present a prototypical cell-based assay that applies Channelrhodopsin2 (ChR2) to recapitulate physiological membrane potential changes and test for voltage-gated ion channel (VGIC) blockade. ChR2 and the voltage-gated Ca channel 1.2 (Ca1.2) are expressed in individual HEK293 cell lines that are then co-cultured for formation of gap junctions and an electrical syncytium. This co-culture allows identification of blockers using parallel fluorescence plate readers in the 384-well plate format in an all-optical mode of operation. The assay is transferable to other VGICs by modularly combining new and existing cell lines and potentially also to other drug targets.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0755-8_17DOI Listing

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