Study of the time effect on the strength of cell-cell adhesion force by a novel nano-picker.

Cell's adhesion is important to cell's interaction and activates. In this paper, a novel method for cell-cell adhesion force measurement was proposed by using a nano-picker. The effect of the contact time on the cell-cell adhesion force was studied. The nano-picker was fabricated from an atomic force microscopy (AFM) cantilever by nano fabrication technique. The cell-cell adhesion force was measured based on the deflection of the nano-picker beam. The result suggests that the adhesion force between cells increased with the increasing of contact time at the first few minutes. After that, the force became constant. This measurement methodology was based on the nanorobotic manipulation system inside an environmental scanning electron microscope. It can realize both the observation and manipulation of a single cell at nanoscale. The quantitative and precise cell-cell adhesion force result can be obtained by this method. It would help us to understand the single cell interaction with time and would benefit the research in medical and biological fields potentially.