Uses in Cell Biology
Verapamil is also used in cell biology as an inhibitor of drug efflux pump proteins such as P-glycoprotein. This is useful as many tumor cell lines overexpress drug efflux pumps, limiting the effectiveness of cytotoxic drugs or fluorescent tags. It is also used in fluorescent cell sorting for DNA content, as it blocks efflux of a variety of DNA-binding fluorophores such as Hoechst 33342. Radioactively-labelled verapamil and positron emission tomography can be used with to measure P-glycoprotein function.
Read more about this topic: Verapamil
Famous quotes containing the words cell and/or biology:
“There’s not one part of his physical being that’s like that of human beings. From his warped brain down to the tiniest argumentative cell of his huge carcass, he’s unearthly.”
—Willis Cooper. Rowland V. Lee. Wolf von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone)
“Nothing can be more incorrect than the assumption one sometimes meets with, that physics has one method, chemistry another, and biology a third.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)