Equipment used in the rat ileum practical class

We use 50ml Tissue baths supplied by Radnoti

The tissue bath is filled with Krebs’ solution (final volume 50ml)

Krebs’ solution: 117mM NaCl; 4.75mM KCl; 1.2mM KH 2PO4; 1.2mM MgSO4; 3.8mM
CaCl2; 11mM glucose; 25mM NaHCO3.

This is constantly bubbled with 5% CO 2: 95% O2 (the CO2 equilibrates with

bicarbonate ions in the buffer to maintain the pH of the solution at a physiological
level; the O2 allows the tissue to respire)

Bath temperature = 37C

The force transducer used in the labs is a 50gm isometric strain gauge (model
MLT050/A), and this is connected via to PCs running Powerlab software which is
used to record the trace. The force transducer and software are both from AD
Instruments

Animals are adult male Wistar rats, 175-199g weight. Sections of ileum are placed
under a resting tension of 1g in the tissue bath.