Dr Changjoon Justin Lee, Director of Center for Cognition and Sociality, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), describes how the CoolLED pE-340fura facilitates his work.
Aim: Tonic inhibition is important in information processing and has been implicated in pathologies such as epilepsy. However, it has been challenging to understand this process, since the source of tonic GABA has been unknown.
Findings: By observing calcium oscillation in channel expressing cells stained with Fura dyes (e.g. HEK293) with electrodes patched on excitable cells (e.g. neurons), we have shown that release of glutamate from astrocytes, but not neurons, via bestrophin 1 channels regulates brain function through tonic inhibition.
Future research: The pE-340fura Illumination System is now developed into a more advanced setup with Optopatcher. As the patch setup requires a fluidic chamber with the electrode, environmental regulation and stimulation such as inhibitor treatment or electric pulse can be done simultaneously with optogenetic manipulation to validate the function of interest.
You can find out more about this research in this publication: Yoon, Bo-Eun & Woo, et al. (2014). Glial GABA, synthesized by monoamine oxidase B, mediates tonic inhibition: MAOB is a key GABA synthesizing enzyme of glia. The Journal of Physiology. 592. 10.1113/jphysiol.2014.278754.
We would like to thank one of our Resellers in Korea, Magic Tree, for supporting this researcher.
