Cell to aperture interaction in patch-clamp chips visualized by fluorescence microscopy and focused-ion beam sections.

Patch-clamp is an important method to monitor the electrophysiological activity of cells and the role of pharmacological compounds on specific ion channel proteins. In recent years, planar patch-clamp chips have been developed as a higher throughput approach to the established glass-pipette method. However, proper conditions to optimize the high resistance cell-to-probe seals required to measure the small currents resulting from ion channel activity are still the subject of conjecture.