Goethe University Frankfurt

Here we present an electrophysiological method based on solid supported membranes with focus on its applications for the characterization of electrogenic membrane transporters.

The presented protocol describes the analysis of membrane protein mediated transport on the single transporter level using pore-spanning solvent-free lipid bilayers. This is achieved by the creation of bulk produced nanopore array chips, combined with highly parallel data acquisition and analysis, enabling the future establishment of membrane protein effector screenings.

Co-translational insertion into pre-formed nanodiscs makes it possible to study cell-free synthesized membrane proteins in defined lipid environments without contact with detergents. This protocol describes the preparation of essential system components and the critical parameters for improving expression efficiency and sample quality.

iNEXT-Discovery and Instruct-ERIC: Integrating High-End Services for Translational Research in Structural Biology