The study of fat body receptors (e.g., VHDL receptor) in Lepidoptera has been irksome due to the fact that isolation and purification of these proteins are difficult and resulted in extremely low yields. A rapid and efficient method is presented for the purification of Helicoverpa zea VHDL receptor by the use of VHDL biotin ligand complexed to streptavidin coated magnetic beads. The technique can be easily applied to other ligands and allows for the purification of membrane proteins with higher yields compared to previously used methods involving immunopurification. Although the purified protein can be characterized by Western and non-radioactive ligand blots using enhanced chemiluminescence (ECL), a non-radioactive ligand blot method using VHDL-FITC is presented, which allows for the quick analysis of the receptor directly from the blot under standard UV light. Sufficient receptor protein has been derived for amino acid analysis, receptor-ligand and xenobiotic binding studies. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.