DNA-Coated AFM Cantilevers for the Investigation of Cell Adhesion and the Patterning of Live Cells

A Review of Single-Cell Adhesion Force Kinetics and Applications

Cells exert, sense, and respond to the different physical forces through diverse mechanisms and translating them into biochemical signals. The adhesion of cells is crucial in various developmental functions, such as to maintain tissue morphogenesis and homeostasis and activate critical signaling pathways regulating survival, migration, gene expression, and differentiation. More importantly, any mutations of adhesion receptors can lead to developmental disorders and diseases. Thus, it is essential to understand the regulation of cell adhesion during development and its contribution to various conditions with the help of quantitative methods. The techniques involved in offering different functionalities such as surface imaging to detect forces present at the cell-matrix and deliver quantitative parameters will help characterize the changes for various diseases. Here, we have briefly reviewed single-cell mechanical properties for mechanotransduction studies using standard and recently developed techniques. This is used to functionalize from the measurement of cellular deformability to the quantification of the interaction forces generated by a cell and exerted on its surroundings at single-cell with attachment and detachment events. The adhesive force measurement for single-cell microorganisms and single-molecules is emphasized as well. This focused review should be useful in laying out experiments which would bring the method to a broader range of research in the future.

Enhanced cell surface polymer grafting in concentrated and nonreactive aqueous polymer solutions

Macromolecular cell surface modification techniques have shown tremendous utility in various biomedical applications. However, a major drawback concerns inefficient cell surface modification caused by the poor association of hydrophilic macromolecules with cell surfaces. Here, a novel, highly efficient, and universal strategy in which nonreactive "additive" macromolecules are used to modulate the grafting efficiency of cell surface reactive, hydrophilic macromolecules is described. Unprecedented enhanced cell surface modifications by up to 10-fold were observed when various concentrations of a suitable "additive" polymer was present with a constant and low concentration of a "reactive" macromolecule. The importance of this increased efficiency and the possible mechanisms involved are discussed. The cell compatible technique is demonstrated in the case of four different cell types--red blood cells (RBC), leukocytes, platelets, and Jurkat cells. A practical application of grafting macromolecules to cell surfaces in concentrated polymer solutions is demonstrated by the enhanced camouflage of RBC surface antigens for the development of RhD null RBC. In principle, the technique can be adapted to various macromolecular systems and cell types, with significant potential for biomedical applications such as live cell based technologies.

Semisynthetic DNA-protein conjugates for biosensing and nanofabrication

Conjugation with artificial nucleic acids allows proteins to be modified with a synthetically accessible, robust tag. This attachment is addressable in a highly specific manner by means of molecular recognition events, such as Watson-Crick hybridization. Such DNA-protein conjugates, with their combined properties, have a broad range of applications, such as in high-performance biomedical diagnostic assays, fundamental research on molecular recognition, and the synthesis of DNA nanostructures. This Review surveys current approaches to generate DNA-protein conjugates as well as recent advances in their applications. For example, DNA-protein conjugates have been assembled into model systems for the investigation of catalytic cascade reactions and light-harvesting devices. Such hybrid conjugates are also used for the biofunctionalization of planar surfaces for micro- and nanoarrays, and for decorating inorganic nanoparticles to enable applications in sensing, materials science, and catalysis.