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Updated: Sep 20, 2026

Single-Cell Optical Action Potential Measurement in Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes
Published on: December 22, 2020
Direct measurement of the voltage sensitivity of second-harmonic generation from a membrane dye in patch-clamped
Andrew C Millard1, Lei Jin, Aaron Lewis
1Center for Biomedical Imaging Technology, University of Connecticut Health Center, MC-1507, 263 Farmington Avenue, Farmington, Connecticut 06030-1507, USA. andrew.millard@physics.org
Abstract:
We report what is to our knowledge the first optical imaging of voltage-clamped cells by second-harmonic generation. For the membrane-staining styryl dye di-4-ANEPPS, we determined the sensitivity of second-harmonic generation to be 18%/100 mV at an excitation wavelength of 850 ns. This sensitivity is significantly better than the optimal 10%/100 mV under fluorescence and further establishes the importance of second-harmonic generation for the functional imaging of membrane potential in living cells.

