Ninety-six-well planar lipid bilayer chip for ion channel recording Fabricated by hybrid stereolithography

We present a micro fluidic chip for parallel ion channel recording in a large array of artificial planar lipid bilayer membranes. To realize a composite structure that features an array of recording wells with free-standing microapertures for lipid bilayer reconstitution, the device was fabricated by the hybrid stereolithography technology, in which a Parylene film with pre-formed microapertures was inserted during the rapid stereolithography process. We designed and tested a hybrid chip that has 96 (12x8) addressable recording wells to demonstrate recording of ion channel current in high-throughput manner. Measurement was done by sequentially moving the recording electrode, and, as a result, the channel current of model membrane protein was detected in 44 wells out of 96. We also showed that this hybrid fabrication process was capable of integrating micropatterned electrodes suitable for automated recording. These results support the efficiency of our present architecture of the parallel ion channel recording chip toward realization of the high-throughput screening of ion channel proteins in the artificial lipid bilayer system.