Article Figures & Data
Figures
- Figure 1.
Identification and patch-clamping of rod photoreceptors in the living mouse retinal slice. A, B, A view of the outer portion of a mouse retinal slice fixed in paraformaldehyde, reacted with an antibody against cone arrestin (green), and visualized under a confocal microscope. DAPI staining (blue) of the nuclei is shown in A and omitted in B for clarity. Note the position of the cone somas in the outermost part of the ONL (arrows) and that of the cone pedicles at the bottom of the ONL and in the OPL (arrowheads). Dashed lines delimit the area where rod somas were targeted for recording. OS, Outer segments; IS, inner segments. C, DIC image of the outer portion of a mouse retinal slice and of the recording electrodes placed on adjacent rod somas under infrared (>900 nm) illumination, in the experimental setup. D, Visualization of a pair of rod somas (s1 and s2) simultaneously patch-clamped and filled with Lucifer yellow through the two recoding pipettes (e1 and e2). E, F, Simultaneous voltage-clamp recording from a pair of neighboring mouse rods. Shown are junctional currents (I2) during a series of steps in transjunctional voltage (V1; E) and plot of I2 as a function of V1 (F). The transjunctional conductance (Gj) is estimated from the slope of the linear regression curve that fits the experimental data. This recording was obtained during the subjective night in a CBA/Ca mouse retina. Scale bars: A–C, 25 μm; D, 20 μm.
- Figure 2.
The rod junctional conductance shows a circadian component in the CBA/Ca mouse. Mice were kept dark-adapted for up to 36 h and euthanized, and their retina collected and processed during the subjective day or the subjective night. A, B, Examples of simultaneous perforated voltage-clamp recording from a pair of neighboring mouse rods obtained in a CBA/Ca mouse retinal slice during the subjective day (A) or subjective night (B). C, D, Plots of transjunctional current as a function of transjunctional voltage for the cells illustrated in A (C) and B (D). E, F, Histograms of junctional conductance for rod pairs measured in CBA/Ca mice during subjective day (E) or subjective night (F). Bin width is 50 pS. Red line indicates the position of the median.
- Figure 3.
The rod junctional conductance is invariant under dark-adapted conditions in the C57BL/6 mouse. A, B, Examples of simultaneous perforated voltage-clamp recording from a pair of neighboring mouse rods obtained in a C57BL/6 mouse retinal slice during the subjective day (A) or subjective night (B). C, D, Plots of transjunctional current as a function of transjunctional voltage for the cells illustrated in A (C) and B (D). E, F, Histograms of junctional conductance for rod pairs measured in C57BL/6 mice during subjective day (E) or subjective night (F). Bin width is 50 pS. Red line indicates the position of the median.
- Figure 4.
Daylight uncouples rods. A, B, Examples of simultaneous perforated voltage-clamp recording from pairs of neighboring rods obtained in a CBA/Ca mouse (A) and in a C57BL/6 mouse (B) during the subjective day (yellow symbols) or the subjective night (orange symbols) following >15 min of bright-light adaptation. C, D, Plots of transjunctional current as a function of transjunctional voltage for the cells illustrated in A (C) and B (D). E–H, Histograms of junctional conductance of rod–rod pairs measured in CBA/Ca mice (E, F) and C57BL/6 (G, H) during subjective day (E, G) or subjective night (F, H). Bin width is 50 pS. Red line indicates the position of the median.
