Biomedical applications of AFM

Abstract

The atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a technique that is widely used to study the mechanical properties of biological samples in conditions close to natural. In particular, the technique can deliver the information about both the cell stiffness and the unbinding force of individual molecular complexes. Cell stiffness seems to be a global parameter describing the overall changes occurring in the cell structure, particularly in the cellular scaffold called cytoskeleton. The determination of the unbinding forces, acting between a single pair of molecules, brings more specific information about the interaction forces. Both types of AFM measurements can be successfully applied for the detection and quantification of the alterations of mechanical properties in cancerous cells with the special emphasis on the development of a new technique for the cancer detection on a single cell level. © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd.