A micromanipulation method is used to determine the adhesive energy density (gamma) between pairs of cytotoxic T cells (F1) and their target cells (JY: HLA-A2-B7-DR4,W6). gamma is defined as the energy per unit area that must be supplied to reduce the region of contact between a conjugated cell pair. Our analysis of the data indicates that the force applied by the micropipette on the cell is not uniformly distributed throughout the contact region as we had previously assumed (Sung, K. L. P., L. A. Sung, M. Crimmins, S. J. Burakoff, and S. Chien. 1986. Science (Wash. DC). 234: 1405-1408), but acts only at the edges of the contact region. We show that gamma is not constant during peeling but increases with decreasing contact area of the conjugated cell pairs F1-JY, F1-F1, and JY-JY in contrast to the constancy of gamma for typical engineering adhesives. This finding supports the notion that the cross-linking protein molecules slide towards the conjugated area across the leading edge of the separation while remaining attached to both cells. Our mathematical analysis shows that the elastic energy stored in the cross-links by the membrane tensions balances the diffusive forces that act against cross-bridge migration. The binding affinity between F1-JY is found to be approximately 15-20 times larger than the corresponding affinity for F1-F1. The number of binding sites of F1 for attachment to JY is approximately the same for binding F1 to another F1 and vary between 10(5) and 10(6).