Mechanoprofiling on membranes of living cells with atomic force microscopy and optical nano-profilometry

Abstract

Membrane topography of living cells has been considered as an effective parameter that reflects cellular statuses. With the improvements in spatial and temporal resolutions of various measurement techniques, the changes of membrane topography in response to various external stimulations in the culture environments can be accurately recorded. Membrane roughness is a useful parameter to evaluate the changes in membrane topography. At present, atomic force microscopy (AFM) is the most common technique to measure the membrane topography and roughness of living cells. On the other hand, with the non-contact profiling capability, many optical techniques are also employed in this field of research. This review briefly introduces the evolution and applications of AFM on measuring membrane roughness. Meanwhile, quantifying the cell membrane topography and roughness with a non-scanning, non-contact, and label-free optical technique, non-interferometric wide-field optical profilometry (NIWOP), is also presented.

Multilobed Magnetic Liposomes Enable Remotely Controlled Collection, Transport, and Delivery of Membrane-Soluble Cargos to Vesicles and Cells

“…While the ability to deliver a lipophilic solute to giant liposomes, which possess a smooth surface with an identical bilayer composition as that of MMLs, is perhaps not too surprising due to the absence of any impeding factors that would prevent the two membranes from entering into a close proximity, in the case of live cells, the high effectiveness of cargo delivery by MMLs was unexpected (Supplementary Movie S2). The surface of a living cell is topologically complex and features various receptors, membrane proteins, and other supramolecular structures protruding from the membrane surface …”

Morphometric and Nanomechanical Features of Platelets from Women with Early Pregnancy Loss Provide New Evidence of the Impact of Inherited Thrombophilia

“…Cell membrane roughness (Rrms) reflects changes in the cell morphology [56] and, therefore, is an important morphometric parameter, closely related to cells' structural integrity and the interaction of the cytoskeleton with the plasma membrane [42]. The roughness of the platelet's membrane in the two EPL subgroups (22.9 ± 6 and 24.8 ± 8 nm, respectively) was considerably decreased compared to the control values (Table 3).…”

Remote imaging of single cell 3D morphology with ultrafast coherent phonons and their resonance harmonics

“…It can be altered by modifying the membrane ultrastructure 20 , or by disorganizing the cell microstructure, as observed for cancer cells 21,22 . Differential confocal microscopy 23 and its variation with structured light illumination 24 are non-interferometric optical profiling techniques showing great potential in the field 25 . Nevertheless an accurate calibration procedure is required and both the accuracy and axial resolution are susceptible 26 to disturbances of the light source power, ambient lighting, and reflection characteristics of the sample surface.…”