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Atomic Force Microscopy: A Nanoscopic Application in Molecular and Cell Biology

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Atomic Force Microscopy in Molecular and Cell Biology

Abstract

At the prosperous fields of nanoscience and biology, the nanoscale analysis of cells and cell membrane using atomic force microscopy (AFM) is an exciting and rapidly developing research area. Over the past decade, there has been tremendous progress in the use of AFM to observe living cells and membrane proteins at high resolution. Remarkable advances have been made in applying AFM-based force spectroscopy techniques to characterize surface biomechanical properties, to map receptor sites on cell surface, and to measure cellular interactions at the single-cell or single-molecule level. Moreover, recent developments in AFM combining advanced optical microscopy, such as confocal microscopy and near-field scanning optical microscopy, opened up new avenues for cell imaging at nanoscale resolution.

These authors of Huai-Hong Cai and Jiye Cai contributed equally to this chapter and share the corresponding authorship.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Macao Science and Technology Development Fund (Grant No. 028/2014/A1).

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China

      Huai-Hong Cai, Xueyi Zeng & Xiao Tang

    2. State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicines, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China

      Jiye Cai

    3. Department of Chemistry, Jinan University, Jinan, China

      Jiye Cai

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      Jiye Cai

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    Cai, HH., Zeng, X., Tang, X., Cai, J. (2018). Atomic Force Microscopy: A Nanoscopic Application in Molecular and Cell Biology. In: Cai, J. (eds) Atomic Force Microscopy in Molecular and Cell Biology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1510-7_5

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