Magnetic tweezers
trap using a magnetic field to trap micrometre-seized ferromagnetic beads
Magnetic tweezers (MT) are scientific instruments for the manipulation and characterization of biomolecules or polymers. These apparatus exert forces and torques to individual molecules or groups of molecules. It can be used to measure the tensile strength or the force generated by molecules.
Most commonly magnetic tweezers are used to study mechanical properties of biological macromolecules like DNA or proteins in single-molecule experiments. Other applications are the rheology of soft matter, and studies of force-regulated processes in living cells. Forces are typically on the order of pico- to nanonewtons (pN to nN). Due to their simple architecture, magnetic tweezers are a popular biophysical tool.
In experiments, the molecule of interest is attached to a magnetic microparticle. The magnetic tweezer is equipped with magnets that are used to manipulate the magnetic particles whose position is measured with the help of video microscopy.
Construction principle and physics of magnetic tweezers
A magnetic tweezers apparatus consists of magnetic micro-particles, which can be manipulated with the help of an external magnetic field.
“Magnetic tweezers” enters the record as trap using a magnetic field to trap micrometre-seized ferromagnetic beads. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Magnetic, tweezers and trap can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Magnetic tweezers” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.