Comparison of the viscoelastic properties of cells from different kidney cancer phenotypes measured with atomic force microscopy

The viscoelastic properties of human kidney cell lines from different tumor types (carcinoma (A-498) and adenocarcinoma (ACHN)) are compared to a non-tumorigenic cell line (RC-124). Our methodology is based on the mapping of viscoelastic properties (elasticity modulus E and apparent viscosity η) over the surface of tens of individual cells with atomic force microscopy (AFM). The viscoelastic properties are averaged over datasets as large as 15000 data points per cell line. We also propose a model to estimate the apparent viscosity of soft materials using the hysteresis observed in conventional AFM deflection–displacement curves, without any modification to the standard AFM apparatus. The comparison of the three cell lines show that the non-tumorigenic cells are less deformable and more viscous than cancerous cells, and that cancer cell lines have distinctive viscoelastic properties. In particular, we obtained that ERC−124 > EA−498 > EACHN and ηRC−124 > ηA−498 > ηACHN.