| AVS 54th International Symposium | |
| Biomaterial Interfaces | Thursday Sessions |
| Session BI+AS+NS-ThA |
| Session: | Surface Analysis and Related Methods for Biological Materials |
| Presenter: | Y.J. Kim, Myongji University, Korea |
| Authors: | Y.J. Kim, Myongji University, Korea H.D. Kim, Seoul National University, Korea Y.S. Kim, Myongji University, Korea K.H. Lee, Seoul National University, Korea C.J. Kang, Myongji University, Korea |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Recent advances in atomic force microscopy (AFM) made it possible to investigate the biological materials in a single molecule level. Moreover, the AFM has been used to measure the fine structure of individual live cell even under physiological liquid. The images of cells measured show finer structure of cell boundary compared with those of SEM after fixation. Since electrostatic force microscopy (EFM) using conducting cantilever to AFM allows us to observe the electrical properties of the surface, it is also used to study the various properties of the cell membrane. Reportedly, it is known that protein expression depends on the cell kinds and shows the non uniform distributions, which causes the electrical potential difference on the cell surface in the local area. Thus mapping the electrical potential of a cell using EFM and comparing it with that of reference group, we are able to extract the information to differentiate the cells. In this work, we have identified the breast cancer cells (MCF7) and normal breast epithelial cells (MCF10A) derived from the same origin by fractal dimension analysis using AFM and the electrical properties of the cell membrane measured from the EFM will be also discussed. The results show that AFM imaging with EFM measurement might be feasible methods for analyzing surface structures of living cells with high resolution, and it could provide new insights into cell surface structure.