A miniaturized planar patch-clamp system for transportable use

In the last decade, planar patch-clamp (PPC) has emerged as an innovative technology allowing parallel recordings of cellular electrophysiological activity on planar substrates. If PPC is widely adopted by the pharmaceutical sector, it remains poorly extended to other areas (i.e. environment and safety organizations) probably because of the large, expensive and non-easily transportable format of those commercial equipments. The present work describes for the first time a new compact and transportable planar patch-clamp system (named Toxint’patch or TIP, for Toxin detection with integrated patch-clamp) focusing on environmental matters and meant to be used in coastal laboratories, for direct on-site monitoring of the seawater and shellfish quality. The TIP system incorporates silicon chips tailored to monitor cellular ionic currents from cultured cells stably expressing a phycotoxin molecular target. The functionality of this novel briefcase-sized PPC system is described in terms of fluidic control, electronic performances with amplifying and filtering boards and of user interface for data acquisition and control implemented on a computer.

► The work describes a new compact and transportable planar patch-clamp system focusing on environmental matters, for direct on-site monitoring of the shellfish quality.
► We have combined our knowledge in planar electrophysiology and ion channels properties with microelectronics and microfluidics to develop a compact briefcase-sized system.
► The work describes the integration of this silicon planar patch-clamp chip inside a brief-case system allowing parallelization and automation of the electrical detection.
► This is the first compact, integrated and transportable planar patch-clamp system reported to date.