Outlook and developments
Functionalize AFM cantilevers and tips with particles to probe interactions with cells

The technique developed here enables inert particles to be immobilized on AFM levers or tips, and then used to measure specific interactions with living cells in AFM force spectroscopy experiments. Adapted from existing protocols (attachment of silica beads or nanoparticles), this technique is innovative in that it is the first time that particles have been attached to AFM levers or tips in order to directly measure their interactions with living cells in a liquid medium. One of the advantages of this technique is that it can be applied to any type of inert particle, to measure interactions with any type of cell, making it applicable to answer a wide range of scientific questions.

However, in the future, it will be possible to evolve this technique to free it from the particle bonding step, which represents the main technical difficulty of this protocol. To this...