Voltage-Gated Sodium Channel Drug Discovery Technologies and Challenges

Voltage-gated sodium (Nav) channels represent an important class of drug target for pain and many other pathology conditions. Despite the recent advances in channelopa-thies and structure-function studies, the discovery of Nav channel therapeutics is still facing a major challenge from the limitation of assay technologies. This chapter will focus on advancement and challenge of Nav drug discovery technologies including nonelec- trophysiological assays, extracellular electrophysiological assays, and the newly evolved high-throughput automated patch clamp (APC) technologies.