SURFE²R N1

The technology employs solid supported membrane (SSM) -based electrophysiology which was established in the late 1990s. The reusable sensors contain a gold-coating on which the SSM is formed in a quick pipetting process. Then the sample containing your transporter of interest is added on top to physically adsorb to the SSM. Any kind of membrane preparation containing the protein of interest can be used for measurements, e.g. membrane vesicles after cell disruption or proteoliposomes after reconstitution of purified proteins. These samples can be stored frozen for months and years. Therefore no running cell culture lab is required.

The key to SSM-based electrophysiology is the exchange of solutions to provide the substrate or ligand and activate the transporter. The following charge translocation is detected and can be analyzed. Due to the high stability of the SSM up to one hundred sequential measurements can be performed on the same sample. This allows for determination of parameters such as EC₅₀ or IC₅₀. Since the time resolution of solution exchange is state-of-the-art, not only slow transport can be measured, but also fast binding reactions can be assayed and rate constants can be determined.