title: Optical trapping and manipulation of live T cells with a low numerical aperture lens.
abstract: An optical manipulation system that employs both optical and temperature gradients to simultaneously enable trapping, manipulating and imaging of live cells with a low magnification, low numerical aperture objective lens (10x/0.4 N.A.) is reported. This approach negates the requirement for a high N.A. lens used in traditional optical trapping. Our system comprised a dual scanning system and two independent lasers which provided the ability to move the trapping spot independently of the confocal imaging process in close to real-time and without pre-programming. To demonstrate the efficacy of this innovative method, trapping and manipulation of live T cells was simultaneously performed over a field of view exceeding 1 mm(2) for extended periods without compromising cell viability.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Biophotonics, Strathclyde Institute for Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, University Of Strathclyde, 27 Taylor St, Glasgow G4 0NR, United Kingdom. j.harris@strath.ac.uk
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.forename: Gail
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: McConnell
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002469:Cell Separation / Q000379:methods*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D007909:Lenses; D051379:Mice; D008846:Micromanipulation / Q000295:instrumentation*; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal / Q000295:instrumentation*; D052898:Optical Tweezers; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*