Optical tweezers experiments for fibroblast cell growth stimulation

Optical tweezers constitute an increasingly used tool for the study of biomechanical properties of cells. Here we report experiments for the projection induction of NIH3T3 fibroblast cells, using a single-trap optical tweezers. The system is based on a 1064-nm, 50mW infrared gaussian laser beam, a 100x microscope objective with 1.25 numerical aperture and a temperature-controlled warming plate to maintain cell viability. Eighteen cells were exposed to the focussed laser beam in different cell zones and another 18 cells were observed without laser stimulation as a control population. The results show that the probability of lamelipodia growth increases on exposed cells by a factor 1.5.