Adhesion of melanoma cells to the surfaces of microspheres studied by atomic force microscopy

It is of fundamental importance to understand the mechanism of adhesion between a mammalian cell and a material surface. In the present study, we have used atomic force microscopy (AFM) to measure the interaction forces between the murine melanoma cells and the single polystyrene microspheres of different surface chemistries in serum-free culture media: the unmodified hydrophobic polystyrene (bare/PS) and the carboxyl-modified polystyrene (COOH/PS). The cell–microsphere interaction forces have been also measured in the culture media containing the free Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) peptides as an integrin inhibitor. In the absence of free RGD peptides, the adhesion force for COOH/PS was larger than that for bare/PS. The adhesion force for COOH/PS decreased with increasing the concentration of free RGD peptides added in the culture media and then became almost constant at the RGD concentrations larger than 0.5 mg/mL, whereas that for bare/PS remained very small regardless of the RGD concentration. In addition, the effects of the microsphere diameter and the contact time on the adhesion forces were investigated. On the basis of the AFM results, possible mechanism of cell–microsphere adhesion will be discussed.