Stiffness measurement of Burkitt's lymphoma cells with atomic force microscopy

Abstract

Cell stiffness is closely related to human health and diseases. Measuring the mechanical property of individual cells may help us to understand the mechanism of diseases at cell level and provide new methods for disease diagnosis and personalized treatment. In this paper, the poly-1-lysine was used to immobilize Burkitt's lymphoma (BL) cells onto the glass substrate for being imaged in fluid by atomic force microscopy (AFM). In nearphysiological environment, with the use of AFM, the high resolution morphology image of BL cells was obtained and the mechanical property of BL cells was measured. The detailed processes of the sample preparation and computing the Young's modulus of BL cells from force curves were presented. The experimental result indicated that the Young's modulus of BL cells fixed by glutaraldehyde was about 1MPa. These results may provide useful knowledge for understanding the mechanism of lymphoma and the application of AFM to cancer diagnosis. © 2010 IEEE.