ABSTRACT
This chapter utilizes the whole-cell patch-clamp technique to examine the modulatory behavior of gap junctions in cell pairs has become widespread. Under special circumstances, it is even possible to resolve individual gap junction channel currents from macroscopic total junctional current measurements. The chapter examines gap junction channel behavior in mammalian ventricular myocyte preparation, neonatal hamster cell pairs. Cardiac gap junction channel activity has been recorded in two neonatal mammalian preparations, rat and hamster ventricular myocyte pairs. With the cloning of a gap junction protein in adult rat heart, it is of interest to know if other mammalian cardiac gap junctions possess similar functional properties and, presumably, the same protein composition. Neonatal hamster gap junctions have virtually identical functional properties to their counterparts in neonatal rat, which indicates that the there may be a common mammalian cardiac gap junction channel.
