Chambre perfusion ovocyte

Description

The Xenoplace workstation is designed to be a simple yet comprehensive workstation for investigating the electrical properties of Xenopus Oocytes.

Oocytes are useful in electrophysiology and pharmacology research because the pre-emergent egg is basically a factory ready to make a frog, and therefore able to process a wide variety of RNA. As such it is very capable of processing the RNA that codes for membrane ion channels and can easily express those channels in the membrane of the egg. Since a typical egg is about 1mm across, millions to billions of channels can be expressed giving rise to large currents that can be more easily studied than in a neuron or other excitable tissue.

The large size of the egg can give rise to other electrical problems that must be dealt with such as large capacitance and high current. A good amplifier such as the TEC 03 from npi makes the perfect system to use with the Xenoplace since is contains many of the features necessary to discriminate membrane currents and give accurate recordings.