The Nanoscale World

Quantitative Imaging of Living Biological Samples PeakForceQNM AN135


posted by Stephen Minne
Wed, Sep 7 2011

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Quantitative Imaging of Living Biological Samples PeakForceQNM AN135

It is now well established that measuring ex vivo the mechanical properties of living cells can be a good indicator of the health of the organism from which they were extracted. Atomic force microscopy (AFM)  is a powerful investigation and diagnostic tool, especially in force mode. Nevertheless, force spectroscopy suffers from several limitations, including the speed of acquisition, a relative lack of resolution, and the fact that it doesn’t directly provide quantitative information. In order to fill this gap, Bruker has developed a new imaging technique, PeakForce QNM®, which provides much more informative data at a high resolution and with remarkable ease-of-use. Up to now, this very promising technique has been tested successfully on a wide range of samples but not on living organisms. This application note gives an overview of the biological samples that can be imaged using this technique and the information that can be extracted from the atomic force microscopy data.

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