Atomic Force Microscopy for Cell Membrane Investigation.
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a very versatile tool for studying biological samples at nanometer-scale resolution. The cell membrane plays a key role in compartmentalization, nutrient transportation, and signal transduction, while the structural feature of both sides of the membrane remains elusive. Here we describe our methods for the preparation of the cell membrane from the red blood cells and nucleated cells. High-resolution AFM topographs reveal substructural details of both sides of the cell membrane. The structure composition of cell membrane can be directly observed by time-lapse AFM and the positional information of membrane proteins can be located by molecular recognition.
['Cai|Mingjun|M|', 'Wang|Hongda|H|']
D000818:Animals D002462:Cell Membrane D006801:Humans D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) Cell membrane structures Topography and recognition imaging (TREC)