Abstract
A study is reported of a cellular entity (liquid-filled microcapsule) adhered on a flat glass substrate in response to changes in osmotic pressure and temperature. High-resolution reflection interference contrast microscopy (HR-RICM) and phase-contrast microscopy were developed for probing the adhesion contact area, capsule-substrate separation profile and adhesion energy of the adhering micro-capsule. The new technique increased the detection limit of the measured capsule wall-substrate separation in the cohesive zone from 1 to 4.5 μm and improved the spatial resolution of the heterogeneous contact zones. A theoretical model was applied to correlate quantitatively the adhesion energy to the area of the contact zone. The work demonstrated the possibility of ascertaining the quantitative inter-facial adhesion energy of a liquid-filled microcapsule using the present technique and represents the first step in extending this novel approach to study more complicated systems, such as cell-substrate interactions, in the future.
| Original language | British English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 491-495 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 2002 |
Keywords
- Adhesion energy
- Adhesive contact
- Cell adhesion
- Contact area
- Microcapsule
- Osmotic pressure