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Single Cell Isolation by Optical tweezers (OT) (CAT#: STEM-MB-1295-WXH)

Introduction

Single cell methods have become a key technique in prokaryotic biology as single cell isolation provides a means by which previously uncultured microbes can be grown in a lab by eliminating competition from faster growing organisms, or the link between microorganism and genome can reveal previously undiscovered microbial functions and metabolites from this ‘unculturable microbial dark matter’. Isolation of single cells is also key to reproduce a pure culture, where all cells in the culture are derived from a single progenitor cell. Therefore, single cell technologies offer the ability to isolate a single cell from an interfering population and the study of individual cells, unbiased by population effects.




Principle

Optical tweezers (originally called single-beam gradient force trap) are scientific instruments that use a highly focused laser beam to hold and move microscopic and sub-microscopic objects like atoms, nanoparticles and droplets, in a manner similar to tweezers. If the object is held in air or vacuum without additional support, it can be called optical levitation.
The laser light provides an attractive or repulsive force (typically on the order of piconewtons), depending on the relative refractive index between particle and surrounding medium. Levitation is possible if the force of the light counters the force of gravity. The trapped particles are usually micron-sized, or even smaller. Dielectric and absorbing particles can be trapped, too.

Applications

• Optical tweezers are used in biology and medicine (for example to grab and hold a single bacterium, a cell like a sperm cell or a blood cell, or a molecule like DNA).
• Nanoengineering and nanochemistry (to study and build materials from single molecules).
• Quantum optics and quantum optomechanics (to study the interaction of single particles with light).

Procedure

1.Sample preparation
2.Force Calibration
3.Measurement
4.Analysis

Materials

Optical tweezers