Formation of lipid—protein bilayers by micropipette guided contact of two monolayers

Abstract
Bilayers of a few μm2 area were formed from lipid‐protein vesicles. First, two monolayers are generated from vesicles, which then are brought into local contact by use of a micro‐pipette to form a bilayer. Membrane channels of Matrix—Protein and of Colicin A exhibit normal properties in these bilayers. Apart from avoiding solvents completely and of using characterized vesicles as starting materials there are two main virtues to this strategy: (1) Current resolution is very high, a few tenths of a pA at 150 μs time resolution; and (2) transport processes can be studied in dependence of surface pressure between 28 and 48 mN/m.