New biochip helps study cells, may speed up drug development
A MICRO-CHIP (10 mm by 10 mm) with 16 pyramidal pores is a hot new invention, which can be used to gather information on the electrical activity of living cells.
It is capable of obtaining 60 times more data in just one reading than is possible with current technology.
In the near future, the biochip could speed scientific research, which could accelerate drug development for muscle and nerve disorders like epilepsy and help create more productive crop varieties. Since the technology does not kill the cells, it could be used to screen and identify different crop lines.
Additional data
The additional data provided by the chip allows for a deeper understanding of cellular activity compared to current technology, which measures only one point outside one cell and cannot record simultaneously. The device works by measuring the concentration of ions — tiny charged particles — as they enter and exit cells.
The chip can record these concentrations in up to 16 living cells temporarily sealed within fluid-filled pores in the microchip. With four electrodes per cell, the chip delivers 64 simultaneous, continuous sources of data.
The device has been developed by Purdue University researchers. "Instead of doing one experiment per day, as is often the case, this technology is automated and capable of performing hundreds of experiments in one day," said Marshall Porterfield, a professor of agricultural and biological engineering who leads the team developing the chip.
Elaborating on its potential use in agriculture, Porterfield says, "for example, let's say you were interested in developing corn varieties that need less fertilizer.
If you had a library of genes that were associated with high nitrogen-use efficiency — thus making the plant need less nitrogen fertilizer — you could transform a group of maize cells with these genes and then screen each cell to determine the most efficient.
Patch clamping
Then you could raise the one that needed the least fertilizer, rather than putting a lot of different genes into hundreds of plants and waiting for them to grow, as is currently done."
The current technology for analysing cells' electrical activity, called `patch clamping,' uses a tiny electrical probe viewed under a microscope. "It requires a lot of know-how and hand-eye coordination," Porterfield said of patch clamping. The chip, on the other hand, is automated and could be mass-produced in the future, according to a Purdue University press release. Such a readily available chip could record reams more data than patch-clamping.
Ion channels and pumps establish a difference in electrical potential across a cell's membrane, which cells use to create energy and transfer electrical signals.
By quickly allowing ions in and out, they are useful for rapid cellular changes, the kind, which occur in muscles, neurons and the release of insulin from pancreatic cells.
Advanced functions
The chip currently can detect individual levels of different ions. Porterfield believes that with some modifications, however, the chip will be able to measure multiple ions at once and perform even more advanced functions such as electrically stimulating a cell with one electrode while recording the reaction with the remaining three.
Because ion channels are a prominent feature of the nervous system and elsewhere, they are a popular target for drugs. For example, lidocaine and novocain target sodium-channels. In nature, some of the most potent venoms and toxins work by blocking these channels, including the venom of certain snakes and strychnine. — Our Bureau
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