Advanced dynamic atomic force microscopy methods for high-resolution in vitro biomechanical assays of cancer cells

由于外来生物或疾病的入侵，人体细胞的力学特性会发生显著变化。例如，最近的研究清楚地表明，当肿瘤细胞即将转移时，其力学特性（弹性、粘附性）发生了巨大的变化。因此，活细胞的弹性和粘附性测量可以用作其健康状况的指标或即将发生疾病的早期指标。这种生物力学分析也可以为潜在的疾病机制提供有价值的见解，并有助于发现针对癌细胞细胞骨架的抗癌治疗方法。提出的工作涉及使用原子力显微镜进行快速，高分辨率，微创，癌细胞生物力学分析的先进方法的发展。与许多现有的细胞生物力学分析方法相反，所提出的方法将提供癌细胞力学特性的定量图或分布。通过精细地解析活癌细胞局部纳米力学特性的变化，将提供丰富的癌症生物力学诊断信息。这些新信息可能对早期癌症诊断，抗癌药物以及更好地了解癌细胞生物物理/生物力学有广泛的帮助。

Human cell mechanical properties can change significantly due to invasion of foreign organisms or disease. For example, recent research has clearly shown that the mechanical properties (elasticity, adhesion) of tumor cells change dramatically when they are about to metastasize. Thus elasticity and adhesion measurements of a living cell can be used as indicators of its health or as early indicators of impending disease. Such biomechanical assays can also offer valuable insight into the underlying disease mechanisms and aid in the discovery of anti-cancer treatments that target the cytoskeleton of cancer cells. The proposed work deals with the development of advanced methods using the Atomic Force Microscope for fast, high resolution, minimally invasive, biomechanical assays of cancer cells. As opposed to many existing methods of cell biomechanical assays, the proposed methods will provide quantitative maps or distributions of mechanical properties of cancer cells. By finely resolving variations of local nanomechanical properties of living cancer cells a wealth of new diagnostic information on cancer biomechanics will become available. Such new information could be widely useful for early cancer diagnosis, anti-cancer drugs, and for a better fundamental understanding of cancer cell biophysics/biomechanics.