Low Stress Ion Conductance Microscopy of Sub-Cellular Stiffness

• DOI: 10.1039/c6sm01106c
• Publication Date: 2016-08-17T09:36:48Z
• Authors: Richard W. Clarke; Pavel Novak; Alexander Zhukov; Eleanor J. Tyler; Marife Cano-Jaimez; Anna Drews; Owen Richards; Kirill Volynski; Cleo Bishop; David Klenerman
• Keywords: Glycocalyx; Cell membrane

Directly examining subcellular mechanics whilst avoiding excessive strain of a live cell requires the precise control light stress on very small areas, which is fundamentally difficult. Here we use glass nanopipet out contact with plasma membrane to both exert and also accurately monitor cellular compression. This allows mapping stiffness at lateral resolution finer than 100 nm. We calculate exerts as sum intrinsic pressure between tip face plus its direct any glycocalyx, evaluated from gap size in terms ion current decrease. A survey types confirms that an intracellular approximately 120 Pa begins detach cytoskeleton reveals first 660 +/- 90 nm compression neuron body much softer previous methods have been able detect.