Microfluidic formation of lipid bilayer array for membrane transport analysis

We present a highly parallel and reproducible method for reconstituting an array of lipid bilayers to analyze membrane transport. We infuse buffer/lipid/buffer solutions sequentially into a microchannel with numerous microchambers in its walls and seal each chamber by a lipid bilayer containing membrane proteins. Due to the small volume of the chamber (2 pL), membrane transport of confined fluorescent molecules across the bilayer through the proteins is readily observed as changes in fluorescent intensity. We successfully perform quantitative measurement of the transport flux of fluorescent molecules (calcein) through alpha-hemolysin antibiotic pores.