Noise-Free Patch Clamping

Easily adapt your current patch clamp setup

Smooth and stable flow

No noise caused by pulsatile flow

Control over low flow rates

Easily control flow rates below 1µL/min

Easy reversible flow

Switch between vacuum and flow

Patch clamp: a short introduction

Patch clamp is an electrophysiology technique used to measure the ionic currents of isolated cells. It is especially useful to measure the activity of excitable cells, such neurons, cardiac cells and muscle fibers.

Briefly, a glass electrode containing the appropriate medium is placed at the cell membrane. Applying suction to the electrode will form a seal with the membrane. If the membrane remains intact, it is possible to record the activity of ion channels present in the patch of membrane that is in contact with the electrode. If the membrane is intentionally broken, whole-cell readings become possible, with the electrode acting as part of the cell. It is also possible to control the voltage or the current applied to the cell and record its responses, or detach a particular patch of membrane and study different interactions with the electrode.

Current patch clamping setups

Patch clamp is usually performed using peristaltic pumps to perfuse the cells in the reading chamber so they are kept in ideal conditions. Then, researchers use a glass electrode filled with a reading solution and attach the cell membrane to it, forming a GigaOhm seal.

This single-cell interaction is extremely sensitive to fluctuations in flow, and the seal can be lost due to the pulsatile nature of the peristaltic pump motion.

An improved protocol for patch clamping

Our mini pump can easily replace a peristaltic pump for patch clamping, while improving measurement accuracy by providing a much more stable and noise-free flow. Its simple design, with only one inlet, one outlet, and a screen that controls everything through a handle, takes care of all the fluidics and allows you to focus on biology. It is also easily adapted to different reservoir volumes, from Eppendorfs to 1 L bottles. Moreover, it is much more compact, being more convenient to place near the microscope.

Flow rates are easily controlled through its screen, going below 1 µl/min, for localized measurements, or higher, for whole cell experiments. It is also possible to reverse the flow if the goal is to release the cell without breaking the membrane.

Setup

Mini pump

Reservoirs

Glass electrode

Patch clamp amplifiers and readers

The main aim of our setup is to change as little as possible from the conventional technique, with few adjustments to be done, while benefitting from considerable improvements. Thus, the mini pump was designed to simply replace the peristaltic pump, without the need to change or adapt anything else.

Mini pump applications

Some applications of our microfluidic cell culture system include:

Gut-on-a-chip pack

Intestinal cells coculture under flow, mimicking the gut physiology

✓ All microfluidic pieces included, quick and easy assembly

✓ Dynamic culture conditions

✓ Advanced in viro/ex vivo

Gut-on-chip

Blood-brain Barrier on Chip

Plug-and-play instrument pack for long term BBB on a chip study

✓ Relevant microenvironment

✓ Automatized organ-on-chip perfusion

✓ Plug-and-play microfluidic platform

Blood-brain Barrier on Chip

AFM live cell imaging

Electrophysiological studies, such as voltage clamp, whole cell patch clamp, current clamp, etc.

And many more!

Patch clamping with the mini pump

Considering that the setup remains mostly the same as a conventional patch clamping experiment, here we focus on the the technical specifications of the mini pump: