Characterizing the interfacial topology of cells attached to liquid crystals

Widefield surface plasmon resonance (WSPR) microscope provides high resolution imaging of the cell-substrate interface. We report the application of our WSPR imaging system to study the interaction of keratinocytes with the liquid crystals (LC). Imaging of the fixed cell-LC-gold and fixed cell-gold interfaces were performed in air using a 1.45 NA objective based system. In the WSPR microscopy technique, keratinocytes were found forming multiple narrow concentric rings with the presence of liquid crystals but these cells expressed wide band of contact area when they are directly cultured on the glass surface. Our work showed the feasibility of using WSPR microscopy system in imaging cells interaction with liquid crystals.