Abstract
We report on the direct electrical interfacing of a recombinant ion channel to a field-effect transistor on a silicon chip. The ion current through activated maxi-KCa channels in human embryonic kidney (HEK293) cells gives rise to an extracellular voltage between cell and chip that controls the electronic source–drain current. A comparison with patch-clamp recording shows that the channels at the cell/chip interface are fully functional and that they are significantly accumulated there. The direct coupling of potassium channels to a semiconductor on the level of an individual cell is the prototype for an iono-electronic interface of ligand-gated or G protein-coupled ion channels and the development of screening biosensors with many transfected cells on a chip with a large array of transistors.
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Acknowledgements
We thank P. Reinhart for the hSlo hbr5 splice variant, K. Kottig and B. Müller for the chip, D. Eckerlein and H. Simeunovic for technical assistance, and A. Prinz and M. Völker for careful reading of the manuscript. The study was supported by a generous grant of the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung.
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Straub, B., Meyer, E. & Fromherz, P. Recombinant maxi-K channels on transistor, a prototype of iono-electronic interfacing. Nat Biotechnol 19, 121–124 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/84369
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/84369
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