Single-Channel Enzymology

Until recent years, analysis of ion channel mechanisms belonged to the specialty of electrophysiology. Prerequisites for this work included a background in electronics, microelectrode techniques, and voltage clamping. In this voltage-clamp era, the complete repertoire of biochemical techniques had been difficult to apply to channel proteins because there were no routine assays for purification and functional studies. At present, advances in many fields have salvaged ion channels for biochemistry, as evidenced by the diversity of approaches in this volume. Liposome, planar bilayer, and patch recording studies take their inspiration from test-tube tactics that are familiar to many workers in the biochemical and molecular fields. The classical electrophysiologist now hastens to learn the subtleties of channel cloning, while the molecular biologist pauses to reviews the conclusions of noise analysis.