Summary
Ion channels are believed to play an important role in the maintenance of lens transparency. In order to ascribe junctional and nonjunctional permeability properties to specific lens cell types, embryonic chick lenses were enzymatically dissociated into cell clusters, cell pairs and single cells, and both cell-to-cell and single-membrane permeability properties were characterized with the patch-clamp technique. Double patch-clamp experiments and single patch-clamp experiments with Lucifer yellow in the pipette demonstrated that the cells in the dissociated preparation were well coupled, the average conductance between pairs being 42 ± 27 nS. Double patch-clamp experiments also revealed single cell-to-cell channel events with a predominant unitary conductance of 286 ± 38 pS. Whole-cell measurements of surface membrane conductance indicate heterogeneity within the population of dissociated embryonic chick lens cells: 63% of the cells have a voltage-independent leak current, 14% of the cells have a potassium-selective inward rectifier current, and 23% of the cells have a current which turns off with positive voltage on a time scale on the order of seconds. The time constant for this turnoff is voltage dependent.
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The authors would like to thank Mary Hawley for her technical support and for the preparation of Fig. 1, Richard Wetts for his help with the nuclear staining, Mike Kreman for his help with Fig. 3 and Ruth Davis for helpful comments on this manuscript. This work was supported by NIH grants EY-06884 to JEH and EY-04110 to GAZ.
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Millert, A.G., Zampighi, G.A. & Hall, J.E. Single-membrane and cell-to-cell permeability properties of dissociated embryonic chick lens cells. J. Membarin Biol. 128, 91–102 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00231882
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00231882