Papers by Keyword: Patch Clamp

Abstract: Calcium-activated chloride channels (CaCCs) play pivotal roles in many physiological Activities, including transepithelial fluid secretion, smooth muscle contraction and sensory transduction. TMEM16A is a bona fide calcium-activated chloride channel，which was discovered by three independent labs in 2008 after Calcium-activated chloride channel current was recorded about thirty years ago. In this study, DNA fragments encoding mouse TMEM16A with green fluorescence protein (GFP) fusion protein were subcloned into pcDNA3.1/Zeo. Transient transfection condition was optimized and Fischer Thyroid epithelial cells (FRT) expressing TMEM16A were got by stable transfection. The classical calcium-activated chloride channels current was recorded in FRT cells stably expressing TMEM16A by whole cell patch clamp technique. These results were beneficial for the delving into the effects of other bivalent cations on TMEM16A-CaCCs and the role of TMEM16A-CaCCs in cell proliferation and migration.

Abstract: In cell biology and medicine study, continuous high spatial resolution observations of living cells would greatly aid the elucidation of the relationship between structure and function of cells. The development of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) has opened up a new era of life science and has been used to develop a family of related methods that allow studying of cell structure and function on nanometer scale. Scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM) is a new member of such SPM family and can be used to obtain high-resolution non-contact images of the surface of live cells under physiological conditions, and hence allows the relationship between cell microstructure and function to be probed. In this review, we concisely introduce the principles of SICM and its applications in nanobiology and nanomedicine.