Tutorial on chip-based electrophysiology to assess ion channel function

Ion channels are one of the most important categories of proteins in animal and plant physiology. Their function dictates activities as far reaching as controlling transmembrane potential in the nervous system to regulating plant cell volumes in extreme environments. The functionality of these proteins is notoriously difficult to assess, and there is a great demand for high throughput measurement systems which can monitor channel activity in cellular systems. There have been significant recent advances in the field of chip-based electrophysiology, especially microfabricated patch-clamp systems. Our research group is currently pursuing research in this area, and here we provide a tutorial that summarizes all of the relevant work in the field to date. We have also noted areas where we feel that future research in the field is likely to provide improvements in device design, manufacturability and testing of these interesting and important devices.