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Optical Tweezer
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Written by xScience.Info
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Friday, 24 August 2007 |
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 How strong is an individual living cell? How is it moving and deforming? How can the cell fulfil its mechanical tasks? How is it communicating with its environment? The answer to such questions can be found in the interface between physics, cell biology and molecular biology – an internationally strongly growing research field. In this article we will focus on the first of the questions asked above. We demonstrate how physical methods are applied to the investigation of mechanical properties of a living cell.
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In the previous article we learned that a lipid bilayer can exist in different phases. We introduced the terms solid ordered (gel) and liquid disordered (fluid). The first one is a highly ordered phase. The lipids are arranged on a lattice and their structure is ordered. If the membrane is in the other pahse the lipids have lost their internal ordering and they lack their lattice ordering as well. Therefore, a membrane which melts is subject to two different melting processes. 
