(Invited) Nanopore Sensing with a Stable Lipid Bilayer in Microfabricated Devices

Abstract

Artificial cell membranes have emerged as a biomimetic tool in such areas as membrane protein study, synthetic biology, and drug discovery. Planar lipid bilayer is the planar membrane and it is used for measuring transmembrane current of ion channels, membrane peptides, or pore-forming proteins. However, the stability of the lipid bilayer and the reproducibility of bilayer formation are serious issues for the practical experiments. To improve these issues, we have tried to use microfabrication technologies based on photolithography, micro-milling, and 3D printing. Microfabrication and microfluidics have the potential to significantly change the way of recent chemical or biological experiments. Microfabricated devices offer the ability to work with smaller sample volumes, shorter reaction time, and the possibility of parallel operation. They also hold the promise of integrating an entire onto a single chip, as lab-on-a-chip. In this presentation, I introduce a stable and reproducible preparation procedure for the planar lipid bilayers using “droplet contact method” in microfabicated devices. In addition, I will show the recent applications, such as single molecule detection with biological nanopores and DNA computing in the droplet network.