Study of the plasticizer effect of single yeast cell by nanorobotic manipulation system

Plasticizer effect plays an important role in biological field, such as in the fruit ripe process. Humidity is a key factor to affect the plasticize. Previously, the stiffness of plant cells have been measured to study the plasticizer of the plant. However, these studies are based on group cell analysis and is not in vivo. In this paper, A nanoneedle was fabricated from AFM (atomic force microscopy) cantilever by FIB (focused ion beam) etching technique.The nanoneedle was fixed to a nanorobotic manipulator, which has three degrees of freedom, i.e. X, Y and Z translation. Single yeast cell was put on the sample stage inside an environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM). The environment relative humidity was set to three values, i.e. 100%, 70% and 40%. The stiffness of the single cell at these conditions were measured using the nanoneedle driven by the nanorobotic manipulation system.