Atomic Force Microscopy in Molecular and Cell Biology || AFM and NSOM/QD Based Direct Molecular Visualization at the Single-Cell Level

摘要： Cell surface molecules such as receptors play an important role to regulate many essential cellular processes, including cell adhesion, tissue development, cellular communication, inflammation, tumor metastasis, and microbial infection. Specially, these events often involve multimolecular interactions occurring on a nanometer scale, and how to image the distribution and organization of cell surface molecules are becoming increasingly required in Cell and Molecular biology Sciences. By combing atomic force microscopy (AFM), near-field scanning microscopy (NSOM) and quantum dots (QD) labeling, a novel AFM and NSOM/QD-based dual-color nanoscale imaging system is constructed to directly visualize the distribution and organization of these molecules on cell-membrane surface. And this will supply a powerful tool for direct molecular visualization at the single-cell level.