title: Nanoscale monitoring of drug actions on cell membrane using atomic force microscopy.
abstract: Knowledge of the nanoscale changes that take place in individual cells in response to a drug is useful for understanding the drug action. However, due to the lack of adequate techniques, such knowledge was scarce until the advent of atomic force microscopy (AFM), which is a multifunctional tool for investigating cellular behavior with nanometer resolution under near-physiological conditions. In the past decade, researchers have applied AFM to monitor the morphological and mechanical dynamics of individual cells following drug stimulation, yielding considerable novel insight into how the drug molecules affect an individual cell at the nanoscale. In this article we summarize the representative applications of AFM in characterization of drug actions on cell membrane, including topographic imaging, elasticity measurements, molecular interaction quantification, native membrane protein imaging and manipulation, etc. The challenges that are hampering the further development of AFM for studies of cellular activities are aslo discussed.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Robotics, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.
authors.forename: Mi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Robotics, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.
authors.forename: Lian-qing
authors.initials: LQ
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: 1] State Key Laboratory of Robotics, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China [2] Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.
authors.forename: Ning
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Xi
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Robotics, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.
authors.forename: Yue-chao
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000187:drug effects / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D006801:Humans; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations