We developed a novel lipid bilayer array system that contains sub-million femtoliter chambers, each sealed with a stable lipid membrane with high efficiency of over 99%. The developed lipid bilayer system, which has high compatibility with membrane transporters, enhanced the detection sensitivity of membrane transport activity up to 6 orders of magnitude over conventional approaches, allowing the single molecule analysis of membrane transport. This new platform thus broadens the versatility of lipid bilayer array system, paving the way for novel analytical and pharmacological applications, and may contribute to improving our understanding of the working mechanism of membrane transporters.
Researcher Information
JST PRESTO
Research Area: “Structural life science and advanced core technologies for innovative life science research”
Research Theme: “Novel platform to measure the membrane transport activity simultaneous with the conformational change of membrane proteins”
Journal Information
Rikiya Watanabe, Naoki Soga, Daishi Fujita, Kazuhito V Tabata, Lisa Yamauchi, Soo Hyeon Kim, Daisuke Asanuma, Mako Kamiya, Yasuteru Urano, Hiroaki Suga, & Hiroyuki Noji
“Arrayed Lipid Bilayer Chambers Allow Single-Molecule Analysis of Membrane Transporter Activity”
Nature Communications, Published online 24th July 2014
doi: 10.1038/ncomms5519
Contact
[About Research]
Rikiya Watanabe, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Applied Chemistry, the University of Tokyo
E-mail: 
URL: http://researchmap.jp/wrikiya/?lang=english
[About Program]
Koji Matsuo, Takafumi Kawaguchi, and Keiko Ochiai
Life Innovation Group, Department of Innovation Research, JST
E-mail: 