Abstract
The high resolution monitoring of live cell membranes in physiological conditions has been the homework for centuries for biologists. Visualization and Understanding of cell membrane activities could give precious insight upon how cells interact with outer environment. Scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM) can provide the surface morphology of biological soft materials in liquid directly. The SICM uses ionic current as feedback signal by detecting it through the nano‐size opening of glass pipette. The dedicated SICM operating mode called approach and retract scanning (ARS) makes SICM imaging stable in liquid environment. The SICM three‐dimensional topographical image is generated by composing the recorded height information at each pixels. The in‐liquid imaging capability without physical contact allows using SICM for various cell study topics in live status such as cell division, fusion, and other fundamental physiological phenomena. In this study, we examined cell‐to‐cell interaction and cell's plasma membrane transformation. By imaging live brain tumor cell with SICM at the connective position between two cells, we successfully acquired the interactive morphological changes of cell's adhesion molecule at the edge in sequence. From the series of non‐invasive cell morphological images, acquired in three dimension, we also calculated and monitored the velocity of membrane transformation and membrane holes volume changes.
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