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.