Single cell mass measurement from deformation of nanofork

Abstract

A great revolution in health science could be done if the disease could be diagnosis at very early stage. The conventional chemically manipulated biological analysis of group cells is not able to illustrate the fundamental properties of a cell such as cell proliferations, cell growths, cell damage and electro-mechanical properties. In this paper, we are representing a method to measure the mass of a single cell using the deformation of a nanofork (which will pick the cell form a line array substrate). We have used Newton's third law related with the deformation angle caused by the moment of inertia (as the fork will bend downward). Silicon is used as a base material of the nanofork. Firstly, the nanofork is inserted into the line array substrate then it picks up the cell to the upwards creating a deformation of the nanofork because of the cell weight. Then deformation angle is calculated form simulation result. For the experimental purpose we have used cell size is 5 µm. We observed the deformation angle 0.4 µm form the simulation result. Which is sufficient to find out the mass of the cell. Using the deformation angle and the related equations we have measured the mass of a single cell 0.16 pg. This result is very consistent with the previously reported single yeast cell mass.