[Investigation of initial stage of fibroblast attachment by means of interference reflection microscopy]

The initial cell--substrate contach, arising before the beginning of fibroblast spreading is formed from the multitude of discrete microcontacts (MC). The number of these MC increases monotonously and at room temperature 20 degrees C reaches the constant maximum value three hours after the cell settling from the suspension. An increase of MC number is accompanied by two phenomena: 1) expansion of the MC zone from the cell pole to periphery; 2) the following formation of the central continuous contact as a consequence of the fusion of the adjacent discrete MC. The zone of continuous contact expands also from the pole to periphery. The quantitative characteristics of this process are presented and the model of initial attachment as the successive attachments of the cell surface projections are discussed.