Elementary Steps in Synaptic Transmission Revealed by Currents through Single Ion Channels (Nobel Lecture)

Abstract

A new era in cell biology has been heralded by the prize-winning research of Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann. These laureates measured the picoampere currents through individual ion channels (see A, below; ACh = acetylcholine). The breakthrough in suppressing the background noise was achieved by applying a slight suction to the pipette used for the current measurement. This improved the crucial pipette-to-membrane seal by two orders of magnitude. In B, below, such a “patch pipette” is shown on the end-plate membrane of denervated frog muscle fiber. Today the patch-clamp technique is used routinely with other methods such as DNA recombination or fluorimetric techniques, for example, to study the synaptic transfer in its molecular detail.