Imaging quality assessment of different AFM working modes on living cancer cells

Abstract

Since the invention of atomic force microscope (AFM) in 1986, its capabilities in biophysical research, such as living cell imaging, molecule imaging and recognition and drug treatment analysis, have been deeply investigated. Various types of working modes of atomic force microscopy have been employed for imaging and analyzing living cells. The physical properties of living cells can be directly illustrated by its good resolution images. In this paper, the applications of three AFM working modes including contact, tapping and quantitative imaging (QI) modes for the investigation of living lung cancer cells (A549) are presented. Meanwhile, the quality of images of the cells obtained by different working modes is compared through the image quality assessment (IQA) methods.