Introduction of lateral voltage as a new input for artificial lipid bilayer systems

Abstract

Phospholipid bilayer is the basic structure of cell membranes. Artificially formed planar bilayer lipid membrane (BLM) has been widely used as a system for the functional analysis of membrane proteins. However, the measurement method has remained unchanged for several decades. Transmembrane voltage is usually used as the input, and the measured transmembrane current is used as the output of the system. In this work, we propose a method to improve the control of the BLM system by applying a voltage parallel to the BLM (lateral voltage) in addition to the traditional transmembrane voltage. The effects of the lateral voltage on the ion-channel-incorporated BLM systems were investigated.