Analysis of Ion Channels in Skeletal Muscle

Creative Bioarray is committed to providing clients with analytical services of ion channels in skeletal muscle, including activity and expression detection of various ion channels, providing useful information for studying the roles of these ion channels in skeletal muscle physiology and pathology.

Background

In the skeletal muscle, the presence and selective expression of distinct ion channel isoforms underlie the skeletal muscle excitability and force development. These ion channels are important in the fine regulation of cellular functions, such as muscle cell differentiation and adaptation to mechanical metabolism. Mutations in skeletal muscle ion channel genes have been reported to result in skeletal muscle ion channelopathies, including potassium, sodium, calcium, and chloride ion channelopathies.

Ion channels are considered important therapeutic targets for skeletal muscle diseases. There are various ion channels in skeletal muscle involved in different physiological processes, such as chloride channel (ClC-1) and transient receptor potential channel (TRP), which play important roles in muscle function and cellular calcium homeostasis, respectively. Understanding the properties and functions of individual ion channels in skeletal muscle contributes to investigating the molecular mechanisms by which these ion channels are involved in the activation of motoneurons and corresponding muscle cells, thereby complementing knowledge of the basic physiology of skeletal muscle and accelerating the drug discovery for skeletal muscle channelopathies.

Fig. 1 A schematic representation of the calcium ion channels involved in skeletal muscle myopathies. (Maggi, 2021)

Our Services

Researchers at Creative Bioarray have extensive expertise and extensive experience in the field of ion channel analysis in native tissues, which guarantees a comprehensive service for the analysis of skeletal muscle ion channels that contribute to muscle and adjacent tissue function critical. Our services include but not limited to:

• Measurement of excitability parameters of sarcolemma in muscle fibers, including the action potential (AP) amplitude, the latency time of AP, the threshold current needed to elicit a single AP, and the maximum number of elicitable spikes (max N spikes).
• Measurement of cytosolic resting calcium (restCa) levels in muscle fibers.
• Detection of ion channels in skeletal muscle tissue.
• Expression analysis of mRNA expression and protein level of various ion channels in skeletal muscle at different developmental stages.
• Cellular localization of ion channels in skeletal muscle.
• Structural analysis of skeletal muscle ion channels.
• Detection of skeletal muscle ion channel activity, conductance, and Ca²⁺ permeability.
• Analysis of the functional consequences of ion channel mutations in skeletal muscle, such as Na_V1.4 mutations and Kir mutations.

Applications

• Study on the pathological significance of skeletal muscle ion channels
• Development of gene-targeted animal models
• Development of targeted therapies for skeletal muscle ion channelopathies

Creative Bioarray has been working hard for many years to provide clients with a one-stop service for ion channel analysis to accelerate the development of drugs targeting ion channels. Our comprehensive ion channel analysis in skeletal muscle facilitates pathogenesis research and drug discovery of skeletal muscle channelopathies. If you are interested in our services, please feel free to contact us for more details.

Reference

1. Maggi, L.; et al. Ion channel gene mutations causing skeletal muscle disorders: pathomechanisms and opportunities for therapy. Cells, 2021, 10(6): 1521.