Biophysical Journal 61: 1664-1670 (1992)
© 1992 the Biophysical Society

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A sensitive measure of surface stress in the resting neutrophil.

Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27706.

ABSTRACT

The simplest parameterized model of the "passive" or "resting receptive" neutrophil views the cell as being composed of an outer cortex surrounding an essentially liquid-like highly viscous cytoplasm. This cortex has been measured to maintain a small persistent tension of approximately 0.035 dyn/cm (Evans and Yeung. 1989. Biophys. J. 56:151-160) and is responsible for recovering the spherical shape of the cell after large deformation. The origin of the cortical tension is at present unknown, but speculations are that it may be an active process related to the sensitivity of a given cell to external stimulation and the "passive-active" transition. In order to characterize further this feature of the neutrophil we have used a new micropipet manipulation method to give a sensitive measure of the surface stress as a function of the surface area dilation of the highly ruffled cellular membrane. In the experiment, a single cell is driven down a tapered pipet in a series equilibrium deformation positions. Each equilibrium position represents a balance between the stress in the membrane and the pressure drop across the cell. For most cells that seemed to be "passive," as judged by their spherical appearance and lack of pseudopod activity, area dilations of approximately 30% were accompanied by only a small increase in the membrane tension, indicative of a very small apparent elastic area expansion modulus (approximately 0.04 dyn/cm). Extrapolations back to zero area dilation gave a value for the tension in the resting membrane of 0.024 +/- 0.003 dyn/cm, in close agreement with earlier measures.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

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