QPatch Assay Software

Large patch clamp data sets are easily obtained with the QPatch, and therefore quick and automatic data handling is necessary. QPatch Assay Software provides advanced data analysis on hundreds or thousands of experiments simultaneously, without losing the high information content characteristic of patch clamp experiments.

Experimental setup
The QPatch Assay Software is used to set-up advanced protocols for experimental runs on the QPatch. This includes control of gigaseal and whole-cell establishment, voltage protocols and compound handling. The protocols are saved on the integrated Oracle database, which can then be accessed from the QPatch screening station for retrieval and execution of the protocols. Once a protocol has been executed it is locked for further changes, thus ensuring 100% traceability of experimental settings.

The whole-cell protocol determines the suction profiles used for obtaining gigaseal and whole-cell configurations.

For liquid and compound handling, the user-defined application protocol and compound list determines which compounds are given to a cell, and in which order and volume.

Finally, a user-defined voltage protocol determines the experimental test potential, filter settings, leak subtraction, and series resistance compensation settings. For optimal flexibility, it is possible to string together several voltage protocols in the same experiment, and to define advanced protocols such as ramps, pulsetrains and I-V protocols.

Programmable analyses
Once the experiments are executed on the screening station, the data is saved in the Oracle database. Data can be accessed from any PC in network connection with the database, which has the QPatch Assay Software installed.

Because of the potentially very large datasets obtained using QPatch 16 and QPatch HT, the analysis of data is based on analysis 'projects'. One project consists of one or more types of analysis that is conducted on all experiments added to that project. Projects can also be saved as templates containing analyses to be used in future experiments. Therefore, for example IC50 determination of hundreds of compounds only requires setting one cursor! The QPatch Assay Software even enables descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation. Repeated QPatch experiments are immediately and automatically analyzed in the project format.

The simpler analysis types include IC50 and EC50 determination, IV plots, Boltzmann fit and V½ determinations, and all the graphical illustrations and data tables that go into these. All types of data are readily exportable from data tables, whether it is cursor output of raw data, IT plots or dose-response data.
For more advanced needs, you can choose from a number of fits to match your data, e.g. for time constant or reversal potential determinations on raw data level, fitting peak currents in pulsetrains, exponential fit of compound wash-in and wash-out effect in the IT-plot, and many more.

Finally, filters in the project allow the user to set up quality criteria for all measured parameters; for example membrane resistance measurements, series resistance measurements, initial current level etc. This means that you can efficiently weed out bad experiments, without having to inspect every single one.