Solve Patch Clamp technique and its applications.
Answers
The patch clamp is a laboratory technique for studying currents in living cells. It is usually carried out by applying a voltage across the cell membrane and measuring the resulting current.
An alternate current clamp technique is also sometimes used, wherein a current is passed through the membrane and the resulting voltage changes are measured. These changes are called the action potential.
The patch clamp technique was developed in the 1970s by Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann in order to measure the currents of ion channels. This enabled studies of cell processes such as nerve activity.
The technique makes use of a hollow glass tube filled with an electrolyte solution in which there is a pair of electrodes connected to an amplifier. The first electrode is put into contact with the membrane of a cell, and another electrode is placed in a solution around the cell. The circuit forms between the recording and reference electrode.
Cell-attached patch clamping
In cell-attached patch clamping, a pipette is sealed to the cell membrane in order to measure current through one or a few ion channels in that area of the membrane. The cell membrane remains intact. The advantage of attaching only to the outside of the membrane is that the inner cell structure is not disturbed, and, hence, intracellular mechanisms function normally