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Automated Formation of Lipid Membrane Microarrays for Ionic Single-Molecule Sensing with Protein Nanopores

Juan del Rio Martinez, Ekaterina Zaitseva, Sönke Petersen, Gerhard Baaken, and Jan C Behrends, Small, 2014, doi:10.1002/smll.201402016

Sep 25, 2014

Efficient use of membrane protein nanopores in ionic single-molecule sensing requires technology for the reliable formation of suspended molecular membranes densely arrayed in formats that allow high-resolution electrical recording. Here, automated formation of bimolecular lipid layers is shown using a simple process where a poly(tetrafluoroethylene)-coated magnetic bar is remotely actuated to perform a turning motion, thereby spreading phospholipid in organic solvent on a nonpolar surface containing a <1 mm2 4 × 4 array of apertures with embedded microelectrodes (microelectrode cavity array). Parallel and high-resolution single-molecule detection by single nanopores is demonstrated on the resulting bilayer arrays, which are shown to form by a classical but very rapid self-assembly process. The technique provides a robust and scalable solution for the problem of reliable, automated formation of multiple independent lipid bilayers in a dense microarray format, while preserving the favorable electrical properties of the microelectrode cavity array.

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