Assay of endocannabinoid uptake

Abstract

Endocannabinoids at physiological concentrations are crossing cellular membranes by facilitated diffusion, a process that can be studied by measuring transport kinetics. Here, we describe a radiosubstrate-based assay using arachidonoyl[1-3H]ethanolamine or arachidonoyl[1,2,3-3H]glycerol to measure the cellular endocannabinoid uptake in a three-phase assay with human U937 cells.