Budding and growth of optically trapped yeast cells

Summary form only given. Microspheres (2 /spl mu/m-diameter spheres) are trapped and manipulated using interferometric optical tweezers. The dielectric microspheres were aligned along the focused interference pattern generated by a Michelson interferometer and two-beam interference. Not only the shape of cell but the direction of budding and growth of the yeast cell can be changed by focused interference fringes. Although the yeast cell is trapped for several hours, it doesn't show any optical damage (we used near infrared lasers as trapping light source). Mechanical properties of budding yeast can be measured using the interferometric optical trap. Thus, interferometric optical tweezers enable one to trap and manipulate multiple yeast cells. We observed what influence the yeast cells in the optical potential well have on one another.