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Atomic Force Microscopy for Cell Membrane Investigation

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Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 2000))

Abstract

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a very versatile tool for studying biological samples at nanometer-scale resolution. The cell membrane plays a key role in compartmentalization, nutrient transportation, and signal transduction, while the structural feature of both sides of the membrane remains elusive. Here we describe our methods for the preparation of the cell membrane from the red blood cells and nucleated cells. High-resolution AFM topographs reveal substructural details of both sides of the cell membrane. The structure composition of cell membrane can be directly observed by time-lapse AFM and the positional information of membrane proteins can be located by molecular recognition.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Key R&D Program of China (No.2017YFA0505300), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21525314, 21503213, 21727816 and 21721003).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, Jilin, People’s Republic of China

    Mingjun Cai & Hongda Wang

Authors
  1. Mingjun Cai
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  2. Hongda Wang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hongda Wang .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, Midwestern University, Glendale, AZ, USA

    Volkmar Weissig

  2. Nanomedicine Center of Excellence in Translational Cancer Research, Midwestern University, Glendale, AZ, USA

    Tamer Elbayoumi

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Cai, M., Wang, H. (2019). Atomic Force Microscopy for Cell Membrane Investigation. In: Weissig, V., Elbayoumi, T. (eds) Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2000. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9516-5_22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9516-5_22

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  • Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-9515-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-9516-5

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