Worm Breeder's Gazette 16(5): 25 (February 1, 2001)

These abstracts should not be cited in bibliographies. Material contained herein should be treated as personal communication and should be cited as such only with the consent of the author.

Tight-seal whole-cell patch clamping of C. elegans neurons: erratum

Shawn Lockery1, Miriam Goodman2

1 Institute of Neuroscience, 1254 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403
2 1012 Fairchild Center, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027

We regret to inform the C. elegans community that the published recipe
for internal saline for whole-cell recordings[1,2] from neurons was
incorrect.  The published recipe was (in mM): 

KGluconate 125, KCl 18, NaCl 0, CaCl2 0.7, MgCl2 1, HEPES 10, EGTA 10. 

The recipe actually used was (in mM): 

KGluconate 125, KCl 18, NaCl 4, CaCl2 0.6, MgCl2 1, HEPES 10, EGTA 10. 


The main effect of this error resides in the difference in NaCl
concentration. The correct saline will produce a predicted Na reversal
potential of 90 mV with the published external saline, while the
erroneous published saline has an undefined ENa. Because C. elegans
lacks voltage-gated Na channels, this difference in salines may have
little or no effect on recordings of voltage-gated currents.  It may,
however, affect measurements of currents carried by ligand-gated
currents and currents carried by DEG/ENaC channels.  We apologize for
any inconvenience this error may have caused. 

1. Goodman, M.B., Hall, D.H., Avery, L., and Lockery, S.R. (1998) Active
Currents Regulate Sensitivity and Dynamic Range in C. elegans Neurons. 
Neuron 20:763-772. 

2. Lockery, S.R. and Goodman, M.B. (1998) Tight-seal whole-cell patch
clamping of C. elegans neurons.  Methods in Enzymology 295:201-217.