Single ionic channels observed in tissue-cultured muscle

Abstract

The extracellular patch clamp technique developed by Neher et al. to record the responses of single channels in skeletal muscle has provided firm evidence for the two-state nature of the conductance event in nicotinic endplate channels. We report here the use of the extracellular patch technique to record single-channel responses from tissue-cultured chick skeletal muscle cells. The temperature dependence of channel conductance and gating kinetics shows no evidence of discontinuous behaviour between 17 and 37 degrees C.