Development of new cell detachment methods based on a cell-friendly photoresist and cell study using the method

Abstract

Dynamic adhesion and detachment of subcellular regions occurs during cell migration, thus a technique allowing precise control of subcellular detachment of cells will be useful for cell migration study. Previous methods for cell detachment were developed either for harvesting cells or cell sheets attached on surfaces with low resolution patterning capability, or for detaching subcellular regions located on pre-defined electrodes. In this study, a new method that allow in situ subcellular detachment of cells with ~ 1.5 m critical feature size while observing cells under a fluorescence microscope is introduced using a cell-friendly photoresist and spatially modulated light. Using this method, a single cell, regions in cell sheets, and a single focal adhesion complex within a cell are successfully detach. Furthermore, different subcellular regions of migrating cells are detached and changes in cell polarity and migration direction are quantitatively analyzed. In addition to cell migration study, we fabricated tethered cell clusters by partial detachment of patterned cell clusters, which can be useful for the study of stem cell differentiation and tumor speroid formation. This method will be useful for many applications in fundamental cell biology involving cell detachment.