Abstract
Recent insights into the importance of mechanosensing and force transmission at the immune synapse have spurred increased interest in the mechanical properties of leukocyte cell-cell interactions. In this chapter, we describe an imaging-based strategy for measuring cellular forces that utilizes optically transparent arrays of flexible micropillars. This approach has several distinct advantages over standard traction force microscopy, and we anticipate that it will prove very useful for investigators who wish not only to quantify ligand-induced forces with high spatiotemporal resolution but also to place those forces within the context of a broader cell biological response.
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Acknowledgments
We thank A. Gondarenko for assistance with micropillar fabrication and members of the Huse and Kam labs for advice. This work is supported by the US National Institutes of Health (R01-AI087644 to M.H., R01-AI088377 to L.C.K., and PN2-EY016586 to L.C.K.), the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center (M.H.), the Starr Cancer Consortium (M.H.), and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (M.H.). This research used resources of the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, which is a U.S. DOE Office of Science Facility, at Brookhaven National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-SC0012704.
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Jin, W., Black, C.T., Kam, L.C., Huse, M. (2017). Probing Synaptic Biomechanics Using Micropillar Arrays. In: Baldari, C., Dustin, M. (eds) The Immune Synapse. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1584. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-6881-7_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-6881-7_19
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