Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Uppsala University, Ångströmlaboratoriet, Box 35, SE-751 03 Uppsala, Sweden.
CNR-Nanoscience Institute-S3, Via Campi 213/A, 41125 Modena, Italy.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Feb 4;21(4):1069. doi: 10.3390/s21041069.
Atomic force microscopy is an extremely versatile technique, featuring atomic-scale imaging resolution, and also offering the possibility to probe interaction forces down to few pN. Recently, this technique has been specialized to study the interaction between single living cells, one on the substrate, and a second being adhered on the cantilever. Cell-cell force spectroscopy offers a unique tool to investigate in fine detail intra-cellular interactions, and it holds great promise to elucidate elusive phenomena in physiology and pathology. Here we present a systematic study of the effect of the main measurement parameters on cell-cell curves, showing the importance of controlling the experimental conditions. Moreover, a simple theoretical interpretation is proposed, based on the number of contacts formed between the two interacting cells. The results show that single cell-cell force spectroscopy experiments carry a wealth of information that can be exploited to understand the inner dynamics of the interaction of living cells at the molecular level.
原子力显微镜是一种极其通用的技术，具有原子级成像分辨率，还能够探测到几皮牛顿的相互作用力。最近，这项技术已经专门用于研究单个活细胞之间的相互作用，一个在基底上，另一个附着在悬臂上。细胞-细胞力谱学提供了一种独特的工具，可以详细研究细胞内相互作用，并且有望阐明生理学和病理学中难以捉摸的现象。在这里，我们系统地研究了主要测量参数对细胞-细胞曲线的影响，表明控制实验条件的重要性。此外，还提出了一种基于两个相互作用细胞之间形成的接触数量的简单理论解释。结果表明，单细胞细胞力谱学实验蕴含着丰富的信息，可以用来理解活细胞相互作用的分子水平内部动力学。
