ABSTRACT
As the first commercially available surface plasmon resonance device, the BIAcore was primarily conceived with the intention of analyzing macromolecular interactions involving reasonably well defined, purified and soluble interactants. There are a variety of qualitatively informative experimental designs that can be successfully undertaken using lipid vesicles and BIAcore. The vesicle immobilization method, or vesicle-down configuration, involves the introduction of a surface antigen by way of inserting hapten-linked phospholipids into lipid bilayers. The implementation on the BIAcore of methods allowing the reproduction of a more “natural” cellular environment in vitro with which to study membrane-located binding events can be very important considering the central role that membranes play in a variety of biological processes. Homologous/heterologous competition using brush border membrane vesicle preincubated with toxin before injection over an immobilized toxin surface allows for the determination of specific versus non-specific binding events.
