Electrochemistry of supported bilayer lipid membranes: Background and techniques for biosensor development

Biomembranes play a pivotal role in signal transduction and information processing. This is due to the fact that most physiological activities involve some kind of lipid bilayer-based receptor-ligand contact interactions. There are many outstanding examples such as ion sensing, antigen-antibody binding, and ligand-gated channels, to name a few. One approach to study these interactions in vitro has been facilitated by employing self-assembled bilayer lipid membranes (BLMs). Our efforts have been focused on ion and/or molecular selectivity and specificity using easy-to-prepare self-assembled BLMs on solid support (i.e., s-BLMs and sb-BLMs) which, with their enhanced stability, greatly aid in research areas of membrane biophysics, biochemistry, and cell biology as well as in biosensor designs and molecular devices development. In this paper, our current work along with the experiments done in close collaboration with others on supported BLMs towards biosensor development will be discussed. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.