Figure 2.

Single-vesicle bilayer fusion assays. (A) Lipid labeled (Fix et al., 2004) or (B) content labeled vesicles (Bowen et al., 2004) are monitored as they fuse to a lipid bilayer formed on a glass imaging surface. Fusion is indicated by the sudden appearance of fluorescence at the bilayer surface followed by a slow decay as the molecules diffuse. Reconstituted proteins are synaptobrevin (blue), syntaxin (red), and SNAP-25 (green). (C) To minimize the possible influence of the glass surface on the mobility of the lipid bilayer, a method with tethered membrane patches has been devised (Rawle et al., 2011).