Micromanipulation of latex aggregates

Micromanipulation is a technique that has been developed to directly measure the bursting strength and size of single animal and yeast cells. Such measurements could be used to predict cell damage in bioreactors and processing equipment. This novel method involves the use of an optical fibre probe attached to a force transducer which measures the resistance of a particle as it is being squeezed on a slide until it bursts. The resistance to deformation is converted to a voltage readout and from this the probe displacement in relation to particle deformation to bursting and bursting force of the particle can be calculated. For latex particles aggregated with 1M phosphate-citrate buffer at pH 3.8 the mean bursting force was found to be 51 mu N and the mean displacement was 1.89 mu m.