Probing the surface micro-nanostructure of ovarian cancer cells using atomic force microscopy

Ovarian cancer has become the most lethal of gynecological diseases as metastatic potentials with high incidence. The progression of tumor cells is accompanied with the alterations in cellular surface micro-nano structure. The characteristics of cellular surface structures and function in different states could be probed in micro-nano scale using atomic force microscopy (AFM) at single living cell. In this study, we compared the cell surface morphology and plasma membrane roughness of different ovarian cell lines, including normal cell lines HOSEpiC and cancerous cell lines HO-8910. The results show that ovarian cancerous cells HO-8910 exhibit multiple-angle or other irregular shape, while normal cells HOSEpiC have an elliptical or a long spindle-like shape. Ovarian cancerous cells show more disordered actin cytoskeleton structure with increased roughness compare to normal cells, indicating that the roughness of cell surface can be an effective indicator to differentiate the disease state of cells. The micro-nanostructure of cell surface can provide an index for the procession or state of tumor development at single cell level.