Whole-Cell Patch Clamp Electrophysiology: A Method to Study Electrical Properties of Neurons

Abstract

Source: Roy, B., et al. Patch Clamp Recordings from Embryonic Zebrafish Mauthner Cells. J. Vis. Exp. (2013).

This protocol describes a technique called whole-cell patch clamp electrophysiology, which is a method to study electrical properties of Mauthner neurons and other reticulospinal cells in zebrafish embryos.

Protocol

1. Patch Clamp Recording (Whole Cell Mode) All recordings are performed in the whole cell patch clamp mode. Recording chambers are placed onto a microscope stage in an electrophysiology setup. Our stages are fixed and the upright patch clamp microscope is bolted to a movable microscope platform or a microscope translator. Patch clamp pipettes are pulled on a horizontal puller (P-97; Sutter Instruments Co.) from thin-walled, borosilicate glass obtained from WPI. Pipette tip diameters…

Materials

Pipette Puller	Sutter Instruments Co	P-97
Upright Patch clamp microscope	Leica Microsystems	DMLFSA
Amplifier	Molecular Devices	200B
Micromanipulator	Siskiyou Inc.	MX7500