Patent ID: 7615357

Claim:
A method of assaying a compound for voltage-dependent blocking activity against a target ion channel comprising: a. selecting a cell line having a normal resting transmembrane potential corresponding to a selected voltage dependent state of said target ion channel; b. expressing said target ion channel in a population of cells of said selected cell line; c. exposing said population of cells to said compound; d. repetitively applying biphasic electric field pulses produced with extracellular electrodes to said population of cells, wherein said pulses have a maximum amplitude of less than approximately 90 V/cm, wherein said pulses are applied at a rate of at least about 1 per second, and wherein the total duration of each pulse is at least about 1 millisecond so as to effect a controlled change in the transmembrane potential of said population of cells; and e. monitoring changes in the transmembrane potential of said population of cells.