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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Jun 30.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Neurosci. 2013 Jun 25;16(7):805–815. doi: 10.1038/nn.3427

Figure 3. Targeting optogene expression using single-cell electroporation.

Figure 3

a, Left panel: Two-photon Z-stack projection of mouse cortex during successive single-cell electroporation; the transgenic mouse expresses GFP in GAD67-positive cortical inhibitory neurons (green cells). The red neurons have been electroporated with Alexa Fluor 594 (red cells) and plasmid DNA encoding RFP and ChR2. Right panel: 48 hours later the electroporated cells express RFP (red) suggesting that ChR2 is also expressed. b Cell-attached recording from a red cell confirms that blue light stimulation using an LED drives the neuron to fire an action potential precisely and reliably. c Whole-cell recording from a green cell (inhibitory, not electroporated) shows an increased firing probability following a light stimulus. The average membrane potential shows a depolarizing transient 5 ms after the onset of light stimulus, suggesting a direct synaptic connection from some of the electroporated neurons onto this cell. Unpublished data from M. London, L. Beeren and M. Hausser.