Lipid bilayer technologies in ion channel recordings and their potential in drug screening assay

Ion channels are expressed in every tissue and are important for many physiological processes. Malfunction of ion channels can lead to diseases in many tissues. All these make ion channels ideal targets for drug development. Many techniques are employed to study ion channel functions including the lipid bilayer technique. Lipid bilayer membranes are being synthesized in vitro to mimic natural cell membranes. Ion channels are then incorporated into the bilayer membrane for ion channels activity recordings. The use of Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) technologies to form lipid bilayer has made lipid bilayer technique efficient for ion channel recordings and has brought great potential for this technique to be scaled up to a high throughput platform for ion channel drug screening. In this review we discuss the use of lipid bilayer for ion channel studies, conventional methods and current LOC technologies on lipid bilayer formations, comparison of lipid bilayer high throughput platform to automated patch clamp system, and finally the potential of lipid bilayer platforms in drug screening assay.