Abstract: Surface-modified silica microparticles that are functionalized with stabilized phospholipid vesicles are described herein. These stabilized vesicles can be functionalized with either transmembrane receptors or membrane associated receptors and used for affinity pull-down assays or other chromatographic separation modalities to provide affinity capture/concentration of low abundance ligands in complex mixtures with minimal sample preparation. Further described are methods and apparatus for forming polymer frits in a fused silica capillary. The capillary containing a monomer solution is placed between one or more heat sources connected to each other via a jig and operatively coupled to a temperature controller. The polymer frits are synthesized via thermal polymerization of the monomer solution using the heat sources, which allows for placement of the polymer frits at a spatially-defined location in the capillary.

Abstract: Surface-modified silica microparticles that are functionalized with stabilized phospholipid vesicles are described herein. These stabilized vesicles can be functionalized with either transmembrane receptors or membrane associated receptors and used for affinity pull-down assays or other chromatographic separation modalities to provide affinity capture/concentration of low abundance ligands in complex mixtures with minimal sample preparation. Further described are methods and apparatus for forming polymer frits in a fused silica capillary. The capillary containing a monomer solution is placed between one or more heat sources connected to each other via a jig and operatively coupled to a temperature controller. The polymer frits are synthesized via thermal polymerization of the monomer solution using the heat sources, which allows for placement of the polymer frits at a spatially-defined location in the capillary.

Abstract: Direct polymerization of lipid monomers or polymer scaffolding of non-lipid monomers coupled with irradiation or redox polymerization performed at neutral pH resulted in stabilized lipid assemblies. An initiator-buffer component and NaHS03 redox mixture polymerizes reactive lipid monomers at near neutral pH conditions to preserve functionality of reconstituted membrane proteins. Improved stability of black lipid membranes (BLMs) is attained by chemical cross-linking of polymerizable, hydrophobic and commercially available non-lipid monomers partitioned into the suspended lipid membranes, and by suspending the BLMs across low surface energy apertures. Substrate apertures having low surface energy modifiers with amphiphobic properties facilitated a reproducible formation of BLMs by promoting interactions between the lipid tail and the substrate material.