Article révisé par les pairs
Résumé : Ion channels from corn root microsomes were reconstituted in lipid bilayers, either black lipid membranes (BLM), or at the tip of microelectrodes, and their electrical activity characterized. Two reconstitution procedures were developped with BLM: the spontaneous detergent-mediated insertion of proteins from a suspension of ammonium sulphate precipitated proteins, a method which we recently showed to work for the functional reconstitution of the (H+)ATPase of plasma membrane, and the BLM formation method first developped by Schindler [(1980) FEBS Lett. 122: 77], starting from giant proteoliposomes prepared by fusing microsomal vesicles with asolectin large unilamellar vesicles via a freeze-thaw treatment. The presence of proteins in both the giant vesicles and the membrane forming monolayers was checked. The giant proteoliposomes were also suitable for patch-clamp measurements via the "dip-tip" technique. We describe the voltage-dependent properties of the channel which was routinely reconstituted in BLM by the two methods, and we report new data concerning another channel which was highly anion selective as evidenced by the dip-tip technique. © 1992. The Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists (JSPP).