German Engineering Research and Development Center, LSTME-Busan Branch, Busan 46742, Korea.
Institute of Fluid Mechanics, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), 91058 Erlangen, Germany.
Cells. 2022 Jun 23;11(13):2010. doi: 10.3390/cells11132010.
The viscoelastic properties of a cell cytoskeleton contain abundant information about the state of a cell. Cells show a response to a specific environment or an administered drug through changes in their viscoelastic properties. Studies of single cells have shown that chemical agents that interact with the cytoskeleton can alter mechanical cell properties and suppress mitosis. This envisions using rheological measurements as a non-specific tool for drug development, the pharmacological screening of new drug agents, and to optimize dosage. Although there exists a number of sophisticated methods for studying mechanical properties of single cells, studying concentration dependencies is difficult and cumbersome with these methods: large cell-to-cell variations demand high repetition rates to obtain statistically significant data. Furthermore, method-induced changes in the cell mechanics cannot be excluded when working in a nonlinear viscoelastic range. To address these issues, we not only compared narrow-gap rheometry with commonly used single cell techniques, such as atomic force microscopy and microfluidic-based approaches, but we also compared existing cell monolayer studies used to estimate cell mechanical properties. This review provides insight for whether and how narrow-gap rheometer could be used as an efficient drug screening tool, which could further improve our current understanding of the mechanical issues present in the treatment of human diseases.
细胞细胞骨架的黏弹性特性包含了大量关于细胞状态的信息。细胞通过改变其黏弹性特性对特定环境或给予的药物做出反应。对单细胞的研究表明，与细胞骨架相互作用的化学试剂可以改变机械细胞特性并抑制有丝分裂。这设想将流变学测量用作药物开发的非特异性工具，对新药物试剂进行药理学筛选，并优化剂量。尽管存在许多用于研究单细胞机械特性的复杂方法，但这些方法研究浓度依赖性是困难和繁琐的：大的细胞间变化需要高重复率以获得具有统计学意义的数据。此外，当在非线性黏弹性范围内工作时，不能排除方法引起的细胞力学变化。为了解决这些问题，我们不仅将狭缝流变仪与原子力显微镜和基于微流控的方法等常用的单细胞技术进行了比较，还比较了用于估计细胞机械特性的现有细胞单层研究。本综述提供了关于狭缝流变仪是否以及如何可以用作有效的药物筛选工具的见解，这将进一步提高我们对人类疾病治疗中存在的力学问题的理解。
