The mechanism of femtosecond laser nanosurgical attachment is investigated in the following article. Using sub-10 femtosecond laser pulses with 800 nm central wavelength were used to attach retinoblastoma cells. During the attachment process the cell membrane phospholipid bilayers hemifuse into one shared phospholipid bilayer, at the location of attachment. Transmission electron microscopy was used in order to verify the above hypothesis. Based on the imaging results, it was concluded that the two cell membrane coalesce to form one single shared membrane. The technique of cell-cell attachment via femtosecond laser pulses could potentially serve as a platform for precise cell membrane manipulation. Manipulation of the cellular membrane is valuable for studying diseases such as cancer; where the expression level of plasma proteins on the cell membrane is altered.

Date Published: 15 February 2017
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 10062, Optical Interactions with Tissue and Cells XXVIII, 1006203 (15 February 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2250362

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10062:
Optical Interactions with Tissue and Cells XXVIII
E. Duco Jansen; Hope Thomas Beier, Editor(s)