Assembly of single adherent cells on mobile microplates

This paper describes single-cell-mounted mobile microplates. Microfabricated SiO₂ microplates (20-75 mum in diameter and 2 mum in thickness) carry single adherent cells. The microplates are released freely from a plate-holding PDMS substrate. These microplates enabled us to handle adherent cells as if they were floating cells. We applied this cell-handling technique to two types of assembly: (i) microplate-guided 2D assembly of heterogeneous cells for cell-cell interaction analysis, and (ii) 3D microplate assembly powered by cell traction force for fabricating 3D microstructures. These assembly experiments indicate that the cell-mounted mobile microplates make it possible to handle single adherent cells and have potentials to assemble cell-plate microstructures.