Description:

Magnetic microbeads enable sample manipulation by means of external magnetic fields. Ferromagnetic microbeads (diameter ~ 5 µm) coated with ligands to membrane receptors are attached to the cell surface. The cell culture is placed on an inverted microscope and the beads are magnetized in the horizontal plane with a brief (~1 ms) and large (~100 mT) magnetic pulse. Subsequently, the beads are subjected to controlled forces and torques by means of magnetic fields and gradients produced with coils. The movement induced in the beads is tracked with nanometric resolution by signal processing of their image recorded with a CCD camera. The relationship between the magnetic force applied to the beads and the resulting movement allows us to characterize the mechanical properties of the cytoskeleton and to identify pathways of force transmission through the cell membrane.

In this image we can see Magnetic microbeads (arrows) coated with RGD (Arg-Gly-Asp) containing peptide attached to the surface of bronchial human epithelial cells (BEAS-2B). Image obtained by scanning electronic microscopy. The bar indicates 5 µm

Previous Day/Next Day

Please contact the webmaster if you would like to submit an image