Electric stress produces bilayer lipid membranes by exclusion of excessive oil layer

摘要

This paper proposes a formation method for oil-layer-free bilayer lipid membranes (BLM) by using a compressive force of DC electric field. Using a droplet contact device previously developed, constant-voltage steps were applied to the pre-bilayer membrane and carefully controlled the electric stress in response to the membrane features, based on optical and current monitoring. We examined the pathways of the membrane formation and disruption, and discovered a qualitative protocol for oil-layer-free BLM formation. We succeeded in BLM formation using 1:1-mixture of hexadecane and n-decane as an oil example, which was hardly available for the former studies using the device. The method would contribute to produce vivo-like membranes appropriate for membrane protein functionalities.