A SINGLE CELL PAIR MECHANICAL INTERROGATION PLATFORM TO STUDY CELL-CELL ADHESION MECHANICS

Cell-cell adhesion complexes are macromolecular adhesive organelles that integrate cells into tissues. Any perturbations of the cell-cell adhesion structure or related mechanotransduction pathways can lead to critical pathological conditions such as skin and heart diseases, arthritis, and cancer. The current techniques, however, have limitations on their ability to measure the cell-cell adhesion force directly and quantitatively. In the current study, we designed and developed a single cell-cell adhesion interrogation and stimulation platform based on nanofabricated polymeric structures. The platform employs microstructures fabricated from biocompatible materials using an advanced nanofabrication technique, two-photon polymerization (TPP). The strain rate dependency of the junction has been investigated through the stretch test with four different strain rates. The results showed that the junction behaves in a strain-rate-dependent manner, where high strain rates lead to decreased viscosity property, a characteristic for a shear-thinning viscoelastic material. The maturation of this technology can pave the way for the in situ investigation of mechano-chemical signaling pathways mediated by cell-cell junctions and potentially reveal novel disease mechanisms in which defects in cell-cell adhesion play a significant role in the disease pathology.