Characterization of Solid Supported Membranes by Dielectric Spectroscopy: Incorporation of Channel Forming Peptides.

Abstract

Self-assembled lipid membranes formed onto gold surfaces by several methods were examined in seeking membranes suitable for detecting membrane active compounds, especially, ion-channel forming peptides. Dielectric spectroscopy was used for monitoring the membrane formation and for characterizing the electrical and structural properties of the membranes. With the membrane of a thiophospholipid/phosphatidyl choline mixture, voltage-dependent conductance changes were found when the membrane was subjected to alamethicin, a channel forming peptide. The conductance changes were characteristic of the alamethicin channel formation, suggesting the feasibility of the membrane for the sensor of membrane active compounds.Keywords: solid supported membrane/bilayer lipid membrane/dielectric spectroscopy/impedance spectroscopy/alamethicin

Design and implementation of a novel superfusion system forex vivocharacterization of neural tissue by dielectric spectroscopy (DS)

“…Among the various electrophysiological techniques, dielectric spectroscopy has emerged as a powerful method for characterizing biological systems because it is non-invasive and label free (Schwan 1957, Gheorghiu 1993, Rigaud et al 1996, Prodan et al 2004, Dean et al 2008. It has been used to characterize biological systems over a large range of sizes-from peptides within supported membranes (Asami et al 2002) to whole tissue and organ samples (Schwan 1957, Raicu et al 2000, and is a useful method for the study of cellular death (McRae et al 1999, Patel andMarkx 2008).…”