Abstract
The compliant mechanical properties of single cells have been extensively investigated and these properties are known to exhibit a strong dependence on the surrounding environments and also cell types, functions and conditions. An understanding of the cell behavior is important for applications of tissue engineering. Accurate rheological measurements are essential to elucidate the mechanisms of cell integrity and fluidity and are also key to mechanically identifying and separating single cells for cellular and tissue engineering. Of the various existing nano- and micro-rheology techniques, atomic force microscopy (AFM) shows great potential as a minimally invasive method. AFM allows mechanical measurements to be performed without the need for chemical modifications, via nano-scale contact between the AFM probe and the cell surface. In this chapter, we describe a recent advance in which micro-fabricated substrates are used for high-speed, automated AFM rheological measurements on size- and position-controlled cells.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Morris VJ, Kirby AR, Gunning AP (2009) Atomic force microscopy for biologists, 2nd edn. Imperial College Press, London
Guck J, Schinkinger S, Lincoln B, Wottawah F, Ebert S, Romeyke M, Lenz D, Erickson HM, Ananthakrishnan R, Mitchell D, Käs J, Ulvick S, Bilby C (2005) Optical deformability as an inherent cell marker for testing malignant transformation and metastatic competence. Biophys J 88 (5):3689–3698
Cross SE, Jin YS, Rao J, Gimzewski JK (2007) Nanomechanical analysis of cells from cancer patients. Nat Nanotechnol 2(12):780–783
Plodinec M, Loparic M, Monnier CA, Obermann EC, Zanetti-Dallenbach R, Oertle P, Hyotyla JT, Aebi U, Bentires-Alj M, Lim RYH, Schoenenberger CA (2012) The nanomechanical signature of breast cancer. Nat Nanotechnol 7(11):757–765
Gossett DR, Tse HT, Lee SA, Ying Y, Lindgren AG, Yang OO, Rao J, Clark AT, Di Carlo D (2012) Hydrodynamic stretching of single cells for large population mechanical phenotyping. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 109(20):7630–7635
Singhvi R, Kumar A, Lopez G, Stephanopoulos G, Wang D, Whitesides G, Ingber D (1994) Engineering cell shape and function. Science 264:696–698.
Kandere-Grzybowska K, Campbell C, Komarova Y, Grzybowski BA, Borisy GG (2005) Molecular dynamics imaging in micropatterned living cells. Nat Methods 2(10):739–741
Hiratsuka S, Mizutani Y, Tsuchiya M, Kawahara K, Tokumoto H, Okajima T (2009) The number distribution of complex shear modulus of single cells measured by atomic force microscopy. Ultramicroscopy 109:937–941
Cai P, Mizutani Y, Tsuchiya M, Maloney JM, Fabry B, Van Vliet KJ, Okajima T (2013) Quantifying cell-to-cell variation in power-law rheology. Biophys J 105(5):1093–1102
Takahashi R, Ichikawa S, Subagyo A, Sueoka K, Okajima T (2014) Atomic force microscopy measurements of mechanical properties of single cells patterned by microcontact printing. Adv Robot 28:449–455
Chen CS, Mrksich M, Huang S, Whitesides GM, Ingber DE (1997) Geometric control of cell life and death. Science 276(5317):1425–1428
Théry M, Pépin A, Dressaire E, Chen Y, Bornens M (2006) Cell distribution of stress fibres in response to the geometry of the adhesive environment. Cell Motil Cytoskeleton 63(6):341–355
Bhatia S, Yarmush M, Toner M (1997) Controlling cell interactions by micropatterning in co-cultures: hepatocytes and 3T3 fibroblasts. J Biomed Mater Res 34:189–199
Kuribayashi K, Tsuda Y, Nakamura H, Takeuchi S (2010) Micro-patterning of phosphorylcholine-based polymers in a microfluidic channel. Sens Actuators B 149(1):177–183
Tseng Q, Wang I, Duchemin-Pelletier E, Azioune A, Carpi N, Gao J, Filhol O, Piel M, Théry M, Balland M (2011) A new micropatterning method of soft substrates reveals that different tumorigenic signals can promote or reduce cell contraction levels. Lab Chip 11(13):2231–2240
Carter S (1967) Haptotactic islands: a method of confining single cells to study individual cell reactions and clone formation. Exp Cell Res 48:189–193
Selvarasah S, Chao S, Chen C, Sridhar S, Busnaina A, Khademhosseini A, Dokmecia M (2008) A reusable high aspect ratio parylene-C shadow mask technology for diverse micro-patterning applications. Sens Actuators A 145–146(1):306–315
Folch A, Toner M (2000) Microengineering of cellular interactions. Annu Rev Biomed Eng 02:227–256
Kuribayashi-Shigetomi K, Onoe H, Takeuchi S (2012) Cell origami: self-folding of three-dimensional cell-laden microstructures driven by cell traction force. PLoS One 7(12):e51085
Teshima T, Onoe H, Kuribayashi-Shigetomi K, Aonuma H, Kamiya K, Ishihara H, Kanuka H, Takeuchi S (2014) Parylene mobile microplates integrated with an enzymatic release and handling of single adherent cells. Small 10(5):912–921
Radmacher M, Tillmann RW, Fritz M, Gaub HE (1992) From molecules to cells – imaging soft samples with the atomic force microscope. Science 257(5078):1900–1905
Radmacher M, Tilmann RW, Gaub HE (1993) Imaging viscoelasticity by force modulation with the atomic force microscope. Biophys J 64(3):735–742
Alcaraz J, Buscemi L, Grabulosa M, Trepat X, Fabry B, Farre R, Navajas D (2003) Microrheology of Human lung epithelial cells measured by atomic force microscopy. Biophys J 84:2071–2079
Mahaffy RE, Park S, Gerde E, Kas J, Shih CK (2004) Quantitative analysis of the viscoelastic properties of thin regions of fibroblasts using atomic force microscopy. Biophys J 86:1777–1793
Ducker WA, Senden TJ, Pashley RM (1991) Direct measurement of colloidal forces using an atomic force microscope. Nature 353:239–241
Landau LD, Lifshiz EM (1986) Theory of elasticity, 3rd edn. Pergamon Press, Oxford
Alcaraz J, Buscemi L, Puig-de-Morales M, Colchero J, Baro A, Navajas D (2002) Correction of microrheological measurements of soft samples with atomic force microscopy for the hydrodynamic drag on the cantilever. Langmuir 18:716–721
Balland M, Desprat N, Icard D, Fereol S, Asnacios A, Browaeys J, Henon S, Gallet F (2006) Power laws in microrheology experiments on living cells: comparative analysis and modeling. Phys Rev E 74(2 Pt 1):021911
Massiera G, Van Citters KM, Biancaniello PL, Crocker JC (2007) Mechanics of single cells: rheology, time depndence, and fluctuations. Biophys J 93(10):3703–3713
Desprat N, Richert A, Simeon J, Asnacios A (2005) Creep function of a single living cell. Biophys J 88(3):2224–2233
Fabry B, Maksym GN, Butler JP, Glogauer M, Navajas D, Fredberg JJ (2001) Scaling the microrheology of living cells. Phys Rev Lett 87:148102
Fabry B, Maksym GN, Butler JP, Glogauer M, Navajas D, Taback NA, Millet EJ, Fredberg JJ (2003) Time scale and other invariants of integrative mechanical behavior in living cells. Phys Rev E 68:041914.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Japan
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kuribayashi-Shigetomi, K., Takahashi, R., Subagyo, A., Sueoka, K., Okajima, T. (2015). High-throughput Measurements of Single Cell Rheology by Atomic Force Microscopy. In: Arai, T., Arai, F., Yamato, M. (eds) Hyper Bio Assembler for 3D Cellular Systems. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55297-0_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55297-0_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Tokyo
Print ISBN: 978-4-431-55296-3
Online ISBN: 978-4-431-55297-0
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)