Novel Biosensors Using Intact Liposome Microarrays

Many of the interactions studied in the biological and biomedical sciences occur with receptors at cell membrane surfaces. Prominent examples are neurotransmitters, cytokine receptors, tyrosine kinase receptors, ligang-and voltage-gated ion channels, G protein-coupled receptors, and antibody receptors. Interactions with these receptors are of special importance not only to academics, but also to the pharmaceutical industry as almost half of the 100 best-selling drugs on the market are targeted to a membrane receptor. More than 50% of current drug targets are membrane bound.Naturally, there is a great interest in development of sensors using membrane proteins for drug discovery and high-throughput screening for detection of pathogens/toxins. This book describes protocols to array individual, intact small unilamellar vesicles (liposomes) onto chemically modified microwell substrates. These arrays can be used as biosensors using membrane proteins or receptors incorporated in the lipid bilayer of the arrayed liposomes. One of the key examples covered in this work is the use of this platform to display GM1 ganglioside receptor to detect cholera toxin in analyte solutions.