Mechanical cell pairing system by sliding parylene rails

This paper proposes a cell pairing system that is capable of defining the number and the position of trapped cells by mechanically sliding the parylene rail films (PRF). The device can control the area of trapping sites of cells by sliding PRF on a SU-8 comb layer. This mechanism allows us to control the number as well as the order of lined-up cells. We successfully demonstrated lining up of three different cells in a designated order. The proposed system is readily applicable to study the cell-cell interactions using the single cell pairing.