ABSTRACT
This chapter describes an approximate treatment of hydrodynamic intercellular forces in order to convey an intuitive view of basic phenomena. Intercellular contact may thus occur through the tips of microvilli, reducing the hydrodynamic force by a factor on the order of 250. H. Brenner and E. O’Neill developed a general formalism allowing simpler expression and use of the results of hydrodynamic calculations on the behavior of two spheres in a linear shear flow. The chapter describes the description of several complementary experimental approaches allowing a quantitative study of cell adhesion. It analyzes a thought experiment in order to examine the definition and significance of cell adhesion. Two problems are of interest with respect to cell adhesion. Determining the interaction between a sphere and a plane surface may help in understanding cell-substrate adhesion. The mutual interaction between two spherical particles is a model relevant to intercellular adhesion.
