Introducing chemicals for research and therapeutic uses into individual cells can be tricky using microscopic needles, so researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have developed a method of shooting ultra-precise jets of liquid straight through the membrane. The method does not seem to damage the function of living cells.
The physicists produced the jets by focusing lasers into a fluid surrounding a target cell. The lasers heated molecules of a blue dye dissolved in the fluid, which in turn created tiny bubbles to rapidly grow and collapse. When these sorts of bubbles are produced individually, they create shock waves that spread throughout the liquid. But producing two adjacent bubbles in rapid succession results in small, powerful jets capable of poking tiny holes, measuring only 0.2 millionths of a meter across, in cell membranes.
The researchers confirmed that the jets allowed the introduction of fluids into the cell by checking for signs of the blue dye inside the pierced cells. The dye is toxic, and it killed the pierced cells, but the holes the jets produced were small enough that it’s likely that the jets will offer a way to inject live cells with nontoxic substances without significantly damaging them.
Article in Physical Review Letters: Aiming with bubbles…
APS press release: Single cell injections…