Quantitative Detection by Single Ion Channel Event Statistics: an Algorithmic Approach

摘要

Ligand-gated ion channels electrical behaviour and, in particular, their conductance are influenced by the binding between receptive sites on channel surface and specific molecules. These channels, inserted in biomimetic membranes and in presence of a proper electronic system for acquiring and elaborating the electrical signal, could give us the possibility of detecting and quantifying concentrations of specific molecules in complex mixtures from ionic currents across the membrane. In this paper we propose an algorithm for extracting the information of target (gating) molecule concentration from an estimation of single-channel open-state probability (p) that, in turn, requires an estimation of the number of active channels.