Scanning Ion Conductance Microscopy for Single Cell Imaging and Analysis

Among the family of scanning probe microscopy (SPM), scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM) is an emerging label-free microscopy technique which shows great potentials for the imaging of living cells in their native environment. Being a versatile microscopy technique, SICM can be easily combined with advanced optical microscopy techniques to study living cells comprehensively. SICM has been thrivingly used to reveal the dynamic changes of living cell membrane structures with high spatial resolution without deforming the cell structures. As a pertinent example, we will review the recent works investigating the interactions between nanoparticles and the living cell membranes and the induced dynamic structural changes at the cell membrane using SICM. Such changes during nanoparticle-membrane interaction and nanoparticle internalization have not been observed by other techniques. Besides the high resolution topographical imaging of living cell membrane, electrochemical and extracellular potential imaging and quantitative measurements of the living cell membranes have also been possible with the recent developments of multifunctional nanopipette probes and hybrid SICM techniques. The developed multifunctional SICM can acquire chemical recognition capability without using optical methods. In this review, we will highlight some latest studies of these multifunctional approaches of SICM. The drawbacks and future prospects of SICM will also be discussed.