A novel way to go whole cell in patch-clamp experiments

Samsoon Inayat, Yan Zhao, Donald R. Cantrell, Dmitriy A. Dikin, Lawrence H. Pinto, John B. Troy

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

With a conventional patch-clamp electrode, an Ag/AgCl wire sits stationary inside the pipette. To move from the gigaseal cell-attached configuration to whole-cell recording, suction is applied inside the pipette. We have designed and developed a novel Pushpen patch-clamp electrode, in which a W wire insulated and wound with Ag/AgCl wire can move linearly inside the pipette. The W wire has a conical tip, which can protrude from the pipette tip like a push pen, a procedure we call the Pushpen Operation. We use the Pushpen operation to impale the cell membrane in cell-attached configuration to go whole cell without disruption of the gigaseal. We successfully recorded whole-cell currents from Chinese hamster ovarian cells expressing influenza A virus protein A/M2, after obtaining whole-cell configuration with the Pushpen operation. This novel method of achieving whole-cell configuration may have a higher success rate than the conventional patch-clamp technique.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number5497104
Pages (from-to)2764-2770
Number of pages7
JournalIEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering
Volume57
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2010

Funding

Manuscript received March 16, 2010; revised May 7, 2010; accepted June 18, 2010. Date of publication June 28, 2010; date of current version October 15, 2010. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant DBI0551852. The work of Y. Zhao was supported under Grant NIH T32-EY07128. The work of D. R. Cantrell was supported under Grant NIH TL1RR025739. Asterisk indicates corresponding author.

Keywords

  • Electrophysiology
  • gigaseal
  • patch clamp
  • whole cell

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Biomedical Engineering

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