Dec. 18, 2009

AFM Discriminates Between Cell Lines

We report for the first time the use of Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) in discriminating between living normal human urothelial cells (HUC) and bladder tumour cells (MGH) on the basis of their ultrastructure and nanomechanical properties. AFM imaging revealed clear differences in the shapes and dimensions of MGH and HUC cells: MGH cells had the tendency to cluster and therefore they did not spread much compared to their normal counterparts. As a consequence, the dimensions of MGH cells were found to be smaller than those of normal HUCs. more