Spatially and temporally resolved delivery of stimuli to single cells.

This Communication describes the photolysis of individual optically trapped vesicles for delivering spatially and temporally resolved stimuli to single cells. A submicrometer-sized vesicle, which encapsulates the stimuli of interest, is precisely positioned with respect to a select cell by optical trapping. Application of a single focused UV laser pulse photolyzes the trapped vesicle and releases the stimuli onto a localized region of the cell. The spatial resolution of this technique is on the order of several hundreds of nanometers, while the temporal resolution lies in the sub-microsecond range.