The viscoelasticity of adherent cells follows a single power-law with distinct local variations within a single cell and across cell lines.

AFM-based force-distance curves are commonly used to characterize the nanomechanical properties of live cells. The transformation of these curves into nanomechanical properties requires the development of contact mechanics models. Spatially-resolved force-distance curves involving 1 to 2 μm deformations were obtained on HeLa and NIH 3T3 (fibroblast) cells. An elastic and two viscoelastic models were used to describe the experimental force-distance curves. The best agreement was obtained by applying a contact mechanics model that accounts for the geometry of the contact and the finite-thickness of the cell and assumes a single power-law dependence with time. Our findings show the shortcomings of elastic and semi-infinite viscoelastic models to characterize the mechanical response of a mammalian cell under micrometer-scale deformations. The parameters of the 3D power-law viscoelastic model, compressive modulus and fluidity exponent showed local variations within a single cell and across the two cell lines. The corresponding nanomechanical maps revealed structures that were not visible in the AFM topographic maps.