title: Detecting changes in arthritic fibroblast-like synoviocytes using atomic force microscopy.
abstract: The morphological and quantitative differences between arthritic fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS) and normal FLS were determined as an effective diagnostic tool for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and confirmed using atomic force microscopy (AFM). Collagen-induced arthritic (CIA) mice and normal mice were prepared and FLS were isolated by enzymatic digestion from the synovial tissue of sacrificed mice at 5-week and 8-week pathogenesis periods. Analysis of cell morphology using AFM revealed that the surface roughness around the nucleus and around the branched cytoplasm was significantly higher in CIA FLS (P < 0.05) than that in normal FLS. In addition, the roughness of two different sites on the arthritic FLS increased with an increase in the duration of pathogenesis. These results strongly suggest that AFM can be widely used as a diagnostic tool in cytopathology to detect the early signs of RA and various others diseases at the intercellular level.
authors: School of Advanced Materials Engineering, Kookmin University, Seoul, Korea.
authors: Jee-Wook
authors: JW
authors: Lee
authors: Center for Biomaterials, Korea Institute of Science & Technology, Seoul, South Korea.
authors: Myoung-Ryul
authors: MR
authors: Ok
authors: Department of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, Dankook University, Gyeonggi-Do, Korea.
authors: Sangmook
authors: S
authors: Lee
authors: Department of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, Dankook University, Gyeonggi-Do, Korea.|Whashin Chemical Co, Gyeonggi-Do, Korea.
authors: Jin Ik
authors: JI
authors: Lim
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000473:pathology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D051379:Mice; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force; D013499:Surface Properties
keywords: Atomic force microscopy; fibroblast-like synoviocyte; morphology; rheumatoid arthritis; roughness of cellular surface