Local Bending Fluctuations of the Cell Membrane

Submicron mechanical fluctuations of the cell membrane are a newly recognized dynamical activity of the living cell (Krol et al., 1990; Levin and Korenstein, 1991; Mittelman et al., 1991; Tuvia et al., 1992a). These fluctuations consist of 300-20nm reversible displacements of the cell membrane in the frequency range of 0.3-30Hz, correspondingly. Submicron cell membrane fluctuations (CMF) were observed in different types of cells including red blood cells (Krol et al., 1990, Levin and Korenstein, 1991) monocytes, lymphocytes, 3T6 fibroblasts, cardiomyocytes (Krol et al., 1990) and murine lymphoma cells (Mittelman et al., 1991).