Development and validation of a thallium flux-based functional assay for the sodium channel NaV1.7 and its utility for lead discovery and compound profiling.

Ion channels are critical for life, and they are targets of numerous drugs. The sequencing of the human genome has revealed the existence of hundreds of different ion channel subunits capable of forming thousands of ion channels. In the face of this diversity, we only have a few selective small-molecule tools to aid in our understanding of the role specific ion channels in physiology which may in turn help illuminate their therapeutic potential.