A distinct subpopulation of neurons in the rostral and ventrolateral part of the medulla oblongata (RVL) plays a key role in controlling sympathetic vasomotor tone. To characterize these neurons under conditions in which all cell-to-cell interactions are eliminated, RVL neurons were acutely dissociated from 13- to 19-day old rats. Cells projecting to the upper thoracic segments were retrogradel...

Detergents have several biological applications but present cytotoxicity concerns, since they can solubilize cell membranes. Using the IonFlux 16, an ensemble whole cell planar patch clamp, we observed that anionic sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), cationic cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), and cationic, fluorescent octadecyl rhodamine B (ORB) increased the membrane permeability of cells subst...

Automated planar patch clamp systems are widely used in drug evaluation studies because of their ability to provide accurate, reliable, and reproducible data in a high-throughput manner. Typically, CHO and HEK tumorigenic cell lines overexpressing single ion channels are used since they can be harvested as high-density, homogenous, single-cell suspensions. While human pluripotent stem cell-deri...

Osmotic cell swelling activates Cl- channels to achieve anion efflux. In this study, we find that both the tyrosine kinase inhibitor herbimycin A and genetic knockout of p56lck, a src-like tyrosine kinase, block regulatory volume decrease (RVD) in a human T cell line. Activation of a swelling-activated chloride current (ICl-swell) by osmotic swelling in whole-cell patch-clamp experiments is blo...

Patch-clamp measurements of Ca(2+) currents and membrane capacitance were performed on slices of mouse adrenal glands, using the perforated-patch configuration of the patch-clamp technique. These recording conditions are much closer to the in vivo situation than those used so far in most electrophysiological studies in adrenal chromaffin cells (isolated cells maintained in culture and whole-cel...

This paper presents a microfluidics-patch clamp platform for performing high-throughput screening and rapid characterization of weak-affinity ion channel-ligand interactions. This platform integrates a microfluidic chip consisting of multiple channels entering an open volume with standard patch clamp equipment. The microfluidic chip is placed on a motorized scanning stage and the method relies ...

The Na(+)-bile acid cotransporters NTCP and ASBT are largely responsible for the Na(+)-dependent bile acid uptake in hepatocytes and intestinal epithelial cells, respectively. This review discusses the experimental methods available for demonstrating electrogenicity and examines the accumulating evidence that coupled transport by each of these bile acid transporters is electrogenic. The evidenc...

The activities of groups of neurons in a circuit or brain region are important for 21 neuronal computations that contribute to behaviors and disease states. Traditional extracellular 22 recordings have been powerful and scalable, but much less is known about the intracellular 23 processes that lead to spiking activity. We present a robotic system, the multipatcher, capable of 24 automatically o...

The voltage- and K(+)-dependent properties of Müller cell currents and channels were characterized in freshly dissociated salamander Müller cells. In whole-cell voltage-clamp experiments, cells with endfeet intact and cells missing endfeet both displayed strong inward rectification. The rectification was similar in shape in both groups of cells but currents were 9.2 times larger in cells with e...