2012
Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 168–173
The study of monocytes and their submembrane structures by atomic force microscopy
S.N. Pleskova,1, 2 E.N. Aybeke,1 E.E. Pudovkina,2 E. Bourillot1 and E. Lesniewska1
1 Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Carnot de Bourgogne, University de Bourgogne, Ave A. Savary 9, 21000 Dijon, France
2 Department of Biotechnology, Physical and Analytical Chemistry, R.E. Alekseev Technical State University, Ave Minina 24, 603950 Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Many monocyte receptors involved in the immune response are localized onto rafts and caveolae. The morphology of planar rafts and caveolae has been studied by atomic force microscopy on the surface of living monocytes and after extraction from the cell membrane by detergent followed by deposition on mica. The sizes of the caveolae were similar when measured on the cell surface (near 50 nm) and on the surface of mica (near 80 nm) but the sizes of the planar rafts differed significantly—their diameter was near 65 nm on the cell membrane whereas on the mica surface it was 2.5 times greater. High-speed atomic force microscopy showed that the increase in the size of planar rafts on the mica surface is due to a rapid (during 1 min the raft area grows more than 10%) diffusion process, in which smaller rafts fuse into a larger structure.
Keywords: atomic force microscopy, caveolae,dynamics, monocytes, planar rafts