Morphological and Mechanical Properties Characterization for Healthy and Cancerous Cells by Home-made Atomic Force Acoustic Microscopy (AFAM)

In this study, firstly the morphology of HL-7702 cells and SMMC-7721 cells were characterized by optical microscope, SEM and AFAM. The shapes of HL-7702 cells were more regular and circular than those of the SMMC-7721 cells. The microvilli around the cells and the roughness of the cells' surfaces were observed clearly. The Hertz model was applied to fit the force-depth curves from the AFAM nanoindentation experimental results. After the Hertzian model fitting process, it can be seen that the Hertz model are in good agreement with the force-depth curves. The healthy HL-7702 cells have higher Young's modulus than the cancerous SMMC-7721 cells. Moreover, the Young's modulus of the two types of cells both increased first and then decreased in the end. Our research provides a valuable technique to discriminate the healthy and cancerous cells by the morphological and mechanical characterization using the AFAM, which can be attributed to the disease diagnosis field.