Patch Clamp Technique in Kidney Cells

The patch clamp technique can be applied to cultured kidney cells (Merot et al. 1988), to freshly isolated kidney cells (Hoyer and Gogelein 1991) or to cells of isolated perfused kidney tubules (Gogelein and Greger 1984). The latter method shall be described in more detail. 

As cells are still part of an epithelial layer and, therefore, are intracellularly coupled, the whole-cell technique is not appropriate in this preparation. On the other hand, cotransport systems can only be investigated by the whole-cell method because the transport 

By application of the whole-cell mode of the patch clamp technique to freshly isolated cells of convoluted proximal tubules, the sodium-alanine cotransport system could be investigated in detail (Hoyer and Gogelein 1991). 

Schlatter (1993) recorded membrane voltages of macula densa cells with the fast or slow whole-cell patch-clamp method. The effects of diuretics and the conductance properties of these cells were examined. 

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