INVESTIGATING MAMMALIAN CELL NANOMECHANICS WITH SIMULTANEOUS OPTICAL AND ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY - Life at the Nanoscale: Atomic Force Microscopy of Live Cells - page 368

Chapter 18

INVESTIGATING MAMMALIAN CELL
NANOMECHANICS WITH SIMULTANEOUS
OPTICAL AND ATOMIC FORCE
MICROSCOPY

Yaron R. Silberberg, a,b Louise Guolla c and Andrew E. Pelling b,c
a Laboratory of Plasma Membrane and Nuclear Signalling, Graduate School of Biostudies,
Kyoto University 1-1, Yoshida-Konoecho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan
b London Centre for Nanotechnology, University College London, 17-19 Gordon Street,
London, WC1H 0AH, UK
c Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, MacDonald Hall, 150 Louis Pasteur, Ottawa,
ON K1N 6N5, Canada
[e-mail]

18.1 CELLULAR STRUCTURE AND NANOMECHANICS

The living cell is embedded in a complex mechanical environment, in
which its behaviour is constantly inluenced by mechanical cues arriving
from the extracellular matrix (ECM) and from neighbouring cells. These
signals regulate various cellular processes including differentiation, gene
expression, mitosis, development, gastrulations and apoptosis.

Hence,
understanding the mechanisms that are involved in cellular transduction
of forces is crucial for understanding how those forces affect the living cell.
Advances in live cell staining and imaging techniques allow the observation
of intracellular structures with high temporal and spatial resolution. In
addition, tools such as atomic force microscopy (AFM)

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allow for the
high-precision measurement and application of forces in the nano- and
pico-Newton scale. 17 The ability to visualize changes in the intracellular

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