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Updated: May 14, 2026

Functional Assessment of Intestinal Tight Junction Barrier and Ion Permeability in Native Tissue by Ussing Chamber Technique
Published on: May 26, 2021
Scanning ion conductance microscopy measurement of paracellular channel conductance in tight junctions
Chiao-Chen Chen1, Yi Zhou, Celeste A Morris
1Department of Chemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, United States.
Abstract:
Elucidation of epithelial transport across transcellular or paracellular pathways promises to advance the present understanding of ion transport and enables regulation of cell junctions critical to the cell and molecular biology of the epithelium. Here, we demonstrate a new instrumental technique, potentiometric scanning ion conductance microscopy (P-SICM), that utilizes a nanoscale pipet to differentiate paracellular and transcellular transport processes at high spatial resolution. The technique is validated for well-defined polymer membranes and then employed to study wild type and claudin-deficient mutants of Madin-Darby Canine Kidney strain II (MDCKII) cells. Paracellular permeabilities conferred by claudin-2 are captured by P-SICM which demonstrates the utility to monitor apparent conductance at subcellular levels.
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