Patent ID: 7659082

Claim:
An in vitro method for identifying a selective inhibitor of human SCN9A comprising, (a) contacting a test compound with human SCN9A polypeptide present in a cellular membrane and determining a decrease in the rate of transport of an ion by said human SCN9A polypeptide across said cellular membrane due to said contacting as compared to the rate of transport of said ion by said human SCN9A polypeptide in the absence of said test compound to determine a percent inhibition; (b) repeating the procedure of step (a) using one or more of the non-SCN9A human sodium channel polypeptides of Table 4 in place of the human SCN9A polypeptide of step (a), wherein a percent inhibition in (a) greater than that for the non-SCN9A polypeptides in (b) identifies said test compound as a selective inhibitor of human SCN9A.