McKinlay Karen J, Allison Francis J, Scotchford Colin A, Grant David M, Oliver James M, King John R, Wood John V, Brown Paul D
School of Mechanical, Materials, Manufacturing Engineering and Management, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD.
J Biomed Mater Res A. 2004 May 1;69(2):359-66. doi: 10.1002/jbm.a.30011.
The efficacy of conventional high vacuum scanning electron microscopy (SEM), environmental SEM (ESEM), and confocal laser scanning microscopy techniques in the assessment of cell-material interactions is compared. Specific attention is given to the application of these techniques in the assessment of the early morphological response of human osteoblast-like cells cultured on titanium dioxide. The processing of cells cultured for conventional high vacuum SEM leads to the loss of morphological features that are retained when using ESEM. The use of cytoskeletal labeling, viewed with confocal laser scanning microscopy, in conjunction with ESEM gives an indication of the changes to cell morphology as a consequence of incubation time in response to interactions at the biological/material interface.
