Single channel recordings from human cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum.

Native membrane vesicles of human cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum have been fused with artificial lipid bilayers to obtain recordings of single chloride and calcium release channels. Tissue was obtained from the explanted hearts of patients with end-stage cardiac failure undergoing heart transplantation. Although previous studies of calcium uptake and release have shown that the function of the sarcoplasmic reticulum is abnormal in end-stage cardiac failure, the basic properties of the channels are similar to those reported for equivalent channels from normal animal tissue.