Quantification Of Living Cell Mechanical Propertity With A Nanorobotic System

Mechanical properties of biological cells are essential to regulating theirphysiological functions and material exchanges with the external environment. Studieson the mechanical properties of the cells provide not only theoretical understanding ofdisease pathogenesis for disease diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation, but alsotheoretical basis for nano-biomechanics research and applications of biological scienceand technology, as well as providing indispensable information for human genome andproteome research. Among many developed methods used in characterizing mechanicalproperties of biological cells. AFM is one of the most significant tools widely used fornano-biomechanics due to its high accuracy and wide range, of force measurement, aswell as sub-nanometer biological imaging in physiological environment.Firstly, the nanobot probes for liquid use are designed. To make sure the probeshave reasonable structure and shape, light path interference, motion space of the probes,and frequency modal are fully considered. With the new probes, the nanorobot can workeffectively in a liquid environment. It can manipulate living cells, scan the bio-samplesurface morphology and measure the mechanical property of the biological cells directlyin their physiological state.Secondly, the cell elastic modulus were tested. Nanoindention experiments werecarried out on cells and the load–depth curve were obtained. we proposes a mechanicalmodel of adherent cells based on the shell theory, indention process simulation aredeveloped. With the proposed model, the experimental fitting data were obtained therebygetting the C2C12cell elastic modulusFinally, in-situ cell–substrate adhesion force and cell-cell adhesion force areperformed using the proposed the dual-probe nanorobot that efficiently providesaccurate real-time force feedback during the adhesion force measurement. Experimentalresults demonstrate that the proposed nanorobot can precisely quantifying cell-substrate,cell-cell adhesion force, and time dependence of the adhesion forces.A variety of manipulation and characterization on living bio-samples in theirphysiological environment can be performed with the proposed nanorobot. It combinethe cell manipulation and imaging organicly. The study promote the development ofnano-biomechanics research, and has significance to the study of nanoscience and nanotechnology.