Because of conflicting results from differing techniques, the degree of voltage sensitivity of Escherichiu coli porins in planar bilayers is still a matter of debate. In order to provide the first comparative study, OmpF porin was purified in three ways; firstly as native outcr membrane vesicles, secondly as salt-extracted porin trimers in sodium dodecyl sulphate and thirdly as solubilised trimers extracted with octyl-polyoxyethylene (Octyl-POE). These methods represent the major approaches to porin isolation and purification. All three were reconstituted into Schindler-type bilayers. Detergent-solubilised OmpF was also reconstituted into Montal-Mueller-and Mueller-Rudin-type bilayers. In all cases voltage-dependent closing of OmpF was observed. Octyl-POE-extracted PhoE porin was similarly investigated in all three types of planar bilayer. Two membrane-formation techniques appeared genuinely to alter the voltage sensitivity of the porins they contained. Firstly, porins in membranes formed by the Montal-Mueller technique sometimes showed an increase in voltage sensitivity during the first 30 min after bilayer formation. Secondly, membranes formed by the Mueller-Rudin technique on thick polyethylene septa showed both poor solvent drainage and a significantly reduced porin voltage sensitivity. [4]. They showed that OmpF produced water-filled channels with limited selectivity between different ions and that the trimer conductance was around 2.0 nS in 1 M alkali metal chlorides. Bcnz and co-workers used the MuellerRudin ('black film' bilayer formation technique and showed that OmpF had an ohmic current/voltage relationship, indicating that the open state of these channels was not voltagesensitive. On the other hand, Schiiidler and Rosenbusch clearly demonstrated that the channels in their experiments could be closed by incrcasing the applied membranc potential difference. Since thcn published results on many porins have divided into two groups. One group, iiiostly using the socalled Schindler technique of bilaycr formation, show OmpF [5, 61, PhoE [7] and OmpC (our unpublished results) to be voltage-sensitive channels that close at potential differences above 100 mV. The other, much larger, group of publications shows porins in Mucller-Rudin bilayers to close only rarely and even then not because of an applied potential [l, 8 ~ 101 (for a review see [Ill).