Measuring the lifetime of bonds made between surface-linked molecules.

It is not well known how the kinetic constants of association between soluble receptors and ligands may be used to predict the behavior of these molecules when they are bound to cell surfaces. Spherical beads were coated with varying densities of anti-rabbit immunoglobulin monoclonal antibodies and driven along glass surfaces derivatized with rabbit anti-dinitrophenol. Particle motion was analyzed. The velocity, attachment frequency, and duration of binding events were determined on individual particles. It was found that i) beads exhibited frequent arrests lasting between a few tenths of a second and more than one minute; ii) when antibodies were diluted, the median arrest duration remained fairly constant (approximately 1 s) whereas binding frequency varied as the first power of the antibody concentration, suggesting that most particle arrests were due to the formation of a single bond; iii) when the shear rate was increased 7-fold, the duration of transient binding events remained constant. The disruptive force exerted on attachment points was estimated to range between about 6 and 37 piconewtons; and iv) the distribution of arrest durations suggested that binding was not a monophasic reaction but involved at least one intermediate step. Therefore, transient binding events reflected the formation of unstable associations that are not detected with standard techniques.