Comparative atomic force and scanning electron microscopy for fine structural images of nerve cells

Although we can routinely obtain fine structural images of cells by atomic force microscopy (AFM), the adequacy and reliability of morphological information acquired from these AFM images remain to be examined. In this report, we compared images of the fine structures of nerve cells as observed by both AFM and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Although AFM revealed the structure of the top views of cells in greater detail than SEM, their side structures were better observed by SEM. The linear structures in the neural processes detected only by AFM were confirmed, by immunofluorescence staining, to be reflections of the cytoskeletal structures located beneath the cell membrane. These differences between the AFM and the SEM images reflected the characteristics of the detection systems and methods used for sample preparation. Therefore, these results revealed that more detailed information on cell morphology can be obtained by using both AFM and SEM to advantage.