Measurements of cell adhesion

Cell suspensions were prepared from the kidney, liver and heart of chick embryos of 5 or 8 days of incubation, and from the limb-buds of chick embryos of 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 days of incubation. When these suspensions were aggregated under laminar shear in a Couette viscometer or random motion in a reciprocating shaker they obeyed the theoretical relationships derived for flocculating lyophobic sols. The values of the collision efficiency found for the different cell types under given conditions were used to calculate the force of interaction between cells of each type. The force of interaction ranged between 9 × 10−11 N (8-day heart) and 3 × 10−9 N (8-day liver). The forces of interaction between cells appear to be responsible for aligning the membranes of adjacent cells with a 10–20 nm gap. It is possible to arrange the cell types in a hierarchy based on the forces of interaction between them. The possible role of these forces in cell specificity is considered.