Pressure-polishing Pipettes for Improved Patch-clamp Recording
Citations Over Time
Abstract
Pressure-polishing is a method for shaping glass pipettes for patch-clamp recording. We first developed this method for fabricating pipettes suitable for recording from small (<3 m) neuronal cell bodies. The basic principal is similar to glass-blowing and combines air pressure and heat to modify the shape of patch pipettes prepared by a conventional micropipette puller. It can be applied to so-called soft (soda lime) and hard (borosilicate) glasses. Generally speaking, pressure polishing can reduce pipette resistance by 25% without decreasing the diameter of the tip opening (Goodman and Lockery, 2000). It can be applied to virtually any type of glass and requires only the addition of a high-pressure valve and fitting to a microforge. This technique is essential for recording from ultrasmall cells (<5 m) and can also improve single-channel recording by minimizing pipette resistance. The blunt shape is also useful for perforated-patch clamp recording since this tip shape results in a larger membrane bleb available for perforation.
Related Papers
- → Effects of borosilicate glass addition on the structure and dielectric properties of ZnTiO3 ceramics(2007)36 cited
- → Borosilicate Glasses(2021)15 cited
- → A omparative Study of the Fatigue Properties of Synro and Borosilicate Glass(1982)9 cited
- → Cleaning Patch Clamp Pipettes Enables their Reuse(2016)
- Quality Control Procedure for Pipetting Systems(1976)