  In the last decade, rapid advances have been made in the field of
micro-rheology of cells and tissues. Given the complexity of living systems,
there is a need for the development of new types of nano- and micron-sized
probes, and in particular of probes with controlled interactions with the
surrounding medium. In the present paper, we evaluate the use of micron-sized
wires as potential probes of the mechanical properties of cells. The wire-based
micro-rheology technique is applied to living cells such as murine fibroblasts
and canine kidney epithelial cells. The mean-squared angular displacement
(MSAD) of wires associated to their rotational dynamics is obtained as a
function of the time using optical microscopy and image processing. It reveals
a Brownian-like diffusive regime where the MSA scale linearly with time and as
the inverse of the cube of the wire length. This scaling suggests that an
effective viscosity of the intracellular medium can be determined, and that in
the range 1 - 10 micrometers it does not depend on the length scale over which
it is measured.
