ESTIMATING THE NUMBER OF CHANNELS IN PATCH-CLAMP RECORDINGS - APPLICATION TO KINETIC-ANALYSIS OF MULTICHANNEL DATA FROM VOLTAGE-OPERATED CHANNELS

Important kinetic information of voltage-operated ion channels can be obtained by estimating the open probability, the availability, and the first latency, and by applying run analysis. In the case of multichan nel patches, estimation of the number of available channels is a prere quisite for the above analysis. Here we describe a method for calculat ion of the a posteriori probability of the number of available channel s in each sweep by using the Bayes formula. This probability serves as a measure for the number of channels and allows for first latency det ermination and run analysis. The methods described were applied to sim ulated and experimental data obtained from L-type Ca2+ channel recordi ngs.