Air molding for planar patch clamp on adherent neuronal networks

Patch clamp is the gold standard technique for the electrophysiological analysis of neuronal cells, but despite its sensitivity it is very demanding on manual work and unfit to monitor more than a few cells at the same time. The final aim of the presented work is to create a patch clamp system suited to measure simultaneously the electrical activity of an adherent neuronal network. For this purpose the air molding technique introduced by Klemic has been implemented, tested and improved to create polymeric planar patch clamp electrodes with variable geometries. The morphological and electrical properties of the samples have been studied with SEM, AFM and FIB cross-sectioning and their performance tested on CHO and CEM cells. Also the suitability of PDMS as substrate for neuron culturing has been assessed.