Comparison of the effects of AgNPs on the morphological and mechanical characteristics of cancerous cells.

Currently, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are the most produced nanoparticles in global market and have been widely utilized in the biomedical field. Here, we investigated the morphological and mechanical effects of AgNPs on cancerous cells of A549 cells and SMMC-7721 cells with atomic force microscope (AFM). The influence of AgNPs on the morphological properties and mechanical properties of cancerous cells were characterized utilizing the force-volume (FV) mode and force spectroscopy (FS) mode of AFM measurement. We mainly focus on the comparison of the effects of AgNPs on the two types of cancerous cells based on the fitting results of calculating the Young's moduli utilizing the Sneddon model. The results showed that the morphology changed little, but the mechanical properties of height, roughness, adhesion force and Young's moduli of two cancerous cells varied significantly with the stimulation of different concentrations of AgNPs. This research has provided insights into the classification and characterization of the effects of the various concentrations of AgNPs on the cancerous cells in vitro by utilizing AFM methodologies for disease therapy.