The micropipette aspiration technique. This technique involves bringing a glass pipette with an internal diameter of ∼3 μm in contact with the lateral wall of the cell. As negative pressure is applied, a tongue of lateral wall is pulled inside the pipette. The tongue length is measured at different aspiration pressures and used to determine the stiffness parameter (see Fig. 7). With increasing suction pressure, the individual components of the lateral wall can be visualized (see Fig. 8).