A METHOD FOR ANALYZING THE ACTIVITY OF AN ION CHANNEL

• Main Authors: THIAM, Abdou Rachid, SCHAACK, Béatrice
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 25.12.2019
• Subjects: INVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIRCHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES; MEASURING; PHYSICS; TESTING

A method to analyze the activity of an ion channel comprising: providing in a hydrophobic medium a first droplet of an aqueous solution AS1 comprising a concentration q of an ion I with c1≥0, wherein the droplet is surrounded by a monolayer of amphiphilic molecules; providing in the hydrophobic medium a second droplet of an aqueous solution AS2 comprising a concentration c2 of the ion I with c2≥0, and c2≠c1, wherein the second droplet is surrounded by a monolayer of amphiphilic molecules further comprising the ion channels to an analyzed; bringing the first droplet and the second droplet into contact so as to form a bilayer of amphiphilic molecules, wherein the bilayer further comprises ion channels to be analyzed, and measuring the radius of the two droplets when they are brought into contact referred to as initial state; and maintaining the first droplet and the second droplet in contact until equilibrium is reached and measuring the radius of the two contacted droplets or determining the number of resulting droplet(s) at the equilibrium state, wherein the ion channel is inactive when the difference of the radius of at least one droplet between its initial state and its equilibrium state is at least 10% or when only one droplet is obtained at the equilibrium state.