The measurement of cell adhesiveness by an absolute method
The development of a quantitative method for measuring cell adhesion would allow tests to be made of a variety of hypotheses concerning the role of cell adhesiveness in many morphogenetic processes, such as segregation (Steinberg, 1963; Curtis, 1960, 1967), contact inhibition of movement (Abercrombie, 1961), malignancy, etc. Furthermore, the development of a quantitative method giving absolute measurements of cell adhesiveness would be of considerable value in that it would allow critical experiments to be made to test hypotheses about the mechanism of cell adhesion. Basically, two methods exist for the measurement of cellular adhesiveness: (i) a measure of the force or energy required to reseparate two cells or a group of cells from one another or from a non-cellular substrate; (ii) a measure of the forces or energies of interaction involved in bringing two cells or cell groups into adhesion. The first method was introduced as a qualitative test of adhesiveness by Dan (1936).