Combined Fluorescence and Atomic Force Microscopy for Cytoskeleton Morphology (AN98)

Fluorescence microscopy has become an indispensable tool in cell biology because it allows specific proteins to be visualized. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is also becoming extensively used in the life sciences, but its development has largely followed an independent path and is used for somewhat different, but often complementary, purposes. Both methods can be applied to hydrated biological samples.
Fluorescence microscopy is
routinely used to image and track
specifically labeled biological
molecules in situ, illuminating a
wide variety of cellular processes.
In contrast, AFM is used for high
spatial resolution imaging but
also introduces the possibility
of mechanically probing and
manipulating samples without
the need of complicated sample
preparation. In this note, we briefly
describe the application of an AFM
mounted on an inverted optical
microscope to the characterization
of the morphology of axons
from cultured chick neurons
using specific fluorescent
immunostaining and topographic
imaging with AFM.