Use of the atomic force microscope....

[William Tivol]

Cornelius Krasel (krasel at wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de) wrote:
: DAVID ADAM BAINES-PINCHEN (pinchen at coventry.ac.uk) wrote:
: > At present, I'm trying to determine the surface features of yeast  with a 
: > SPM but I have yet to find anything. [snip]

: AFAIK it is very difficult to investigate surfaces of unfixed cells by
: AFM because the resistance of the surface to the tip is too low. One
: way to circumvent these difficulties is drying the cells.

Dear David & Cornelius,
	Drying the cells runs the large risk of altering the morphology.
There are new AFM's with "tapping mode" capabilities which greatly lower the
tip-specimen resistance.  I suggest posting to sci.techniques.microscopy or
to the listserver microscopy at msa.microscopy.com to get the comments of the
experts in this field (I am not one).
				Yours,
				Bill Tivol