Preparation of Pipettes and Pipette-Filling Devices for Patch-Clamping Drosophila Neurons
- 1Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires (IBioBA-CONICET), Partner Institute of the Max Planck Society, Buenos Aires C1425FQD, Argentina
- ↵2Correspondence: nmuraro{at}ibioba-mpsp-conicet.gov.ar
Abstract
An essential requirement of every laboratory procedure is to have all materials ready when they are needed, so that the experimental flow is not disrupted. This is particularly true for patch clamping; therefore, effort must be devoted in advance to produce materials such as patch pipettes. This can be a fiddly business; hence, this protocol provides step-by-step advice on how to pull and polish patch-clamp pipettes. It also includes a brief description on how to prepare homemade filling devices to deliver saline efficiently and inexpensively into the pipettes. The protocol ends with guidelines on how to change the filament of a Sutter horizontal puller, a dreaded yet necessary activity that should be learned by anyone who wishes to become an expert patch clamper.
Footnotes
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From the Drosophila Neurobiology collection, edited by Bing Zhang, Ellie Heckscher, Alex Keene, and Scott Waddell.
