A novel method for artificial lipid-bilayer formation

Many proposals have been made regarding the development of biosensors using single-channel recording with an artificial planar bilayer. The fragile nature of bilayer membranes is the major difficulty for the application of the artificial bilayer technique to the development of biosensors. We have developed an apparatus that promptly forms artificial bilayers. This technique is more efficient than other techniques for forming artificial bilayers. Bilayer membranes could be formed within 10 s requiring 1 μl of analyte solution to record single-channel currents using our apparatus. A bilayer was formed by pressing the membrane on an agarose layer with hydraulic pressure. With this novel apparatus, we have recorded single-channel currents of various types of channels such as the BK-channel, the nicotinic receptor channel and the ryanodine receptor channel. The properties of the channels determined with this novel technique agreed well with those determined with conventional techniques.