title: Specific detection of glycans on a plasma membrane of living cells with atomic force microscopy.
abstract: Among the many alterations of cancer cells is the expression of different surface oligosaccharides. In this work, oligosaccharide expression in living cells (cancer and reference ones) was studied with atomic force microscopy by using lectins as probes. The unbinding force obtained for the same lectin type (concanavalin A or Sambucus nigra) suggested slightly dissimilar structures of binding sites of the same ligand type. For the lectin from Phaseolus vulgaris, a much larger unbinding force indicated a distinct structure of the binding site in cancer cells. The unbinding probability confirmed a higher content of both sialic acid and mannose-containing ligands in cancer and reference cells, respectively. These results demonstrate the potential of atomic force microscopy to directly probe the presence of molecules on a living cell surface, together with the quantitative description of their expression.
authors.affiliation: The Henryk Niewodniczański Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Radzikowskiego 152, 31-342 Kraków, Poland. malgorzata.lekka@ifj.edu.pl
authors.forename: Małgorzata
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lekka
authors.forename: Piotr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Laidler
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Labedź
authors.forename: Andrzej J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Kulik
authors.forename: Janusz
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lekki
authors.forename: Wojciech
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zajac
authors.forename: Zbigniew
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Stachura
mesh_terms: D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000737:chemistry; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force / Q000379:methods*; D011134:Polysaccharides / Q000032:analysis*; D001749:Urinary Bladder Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D011134:Polysaccharides