Reconstitution of the complement channel into lipid vesicles and planar bilayers starting from the fluid phase complex.

Proteolysis of the fluid phase complement complex SC5b-9 transforms it into an amphiphilic molecule which resembles the membrane attack complex of complement and reconstitutes into lipid vesicles. Complement-containing vesicles prepared in this way can be made to fuse with planar lipid bilayers transferring their protein content to the host membrane. Massive conductance increases can thus be observed, which are due to the insertion of a large number of ionic channels into the membrane. Using low concentrations of vesicles, single channels can be studied.