Design and Programming of the Micromanipulator Network to Study Single Cardiac Cell Mechanics

Computer-controlled biomechanical experiments on single cells require high accuracy and synchronicity of signals and stability of experimental set-ups. In this paper, we propose a digital micromanipulator network consisting of two micromanipulators to study single cardiac cell mechanics. The micromanipulation system using Ethernet for this network has a large positioning range (20 mm), covering the experimental bath with the cells and nanometer movement resolution (5 nm) for precise experiments. The software for the micromanipulator network was developed in the LabVIEW to provide sufficient synchronicity of micromanipulator movement. The testing of seven consistent steps of two micromanipulators showed that movement was synchronous and maximum loss of synchrony of coordinates was 170 nm. We believe that studies on the changes in single cardiac cell length and force under various mechanical loads can be carried out using the developed network.