Salerno Marco, Dante Silvia
Materials Characterization Facility, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, via Morego 30, 16163 Genova, Italy.
Department of Nanoscopy & NIC, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, via Morego 30, 16163 Genova, Italy.
Materials (Basel). 2018 Jun 5;11(6):951. doi: 10.3390/ma11060951.
We report and comment on the possible increase of application of scanning Kelvin probe microscopy (SKPM) for biomaterials, biological substrates, and biological samples. First, the fundamental concepts and the practical limitations of SKPM are presented, pointing out the difficulties in proper probe calibration. Then, the most relevant literature on the use of SKPM on biological substrates and samples is briefly reviewed. We report first about biocompatible surfaces used as substrates for subsequent biological applications, such as cultures of living cells. Then, we briefly review the SKPM measurements made on proteins, DNA, and similar biomolecular systems. Finally, some considerations about the perspectives for the use of SKPM in the field of life sciences are made. This work does not pretend to provide a comprehensive view of this emerging scenario, yet we believe that it is time to put these types of application of SKPM under focus, and to face the related challenges, such as measuring in liquid and quantitative comparison with other techniques for the electrical potential readout.
我们报告并评论扫描开尔文探针显微镜(SKPM)在生物材料、生物基质和生物样品中应用可能增加的情况。首先,介绍了SKPM的基本概念和实际局限性,指出了正确校准探针的困难。然后,简要回顾了关于在生物基质和样品上使用SKPM的最相关文献。我们首先报告用作后续生物应用(如活细胞培养)底物的生物相容性表面。然后,简要回顾了对蛋白质、DNA和类似生物分子系统进行的SKPM测量。最后,对SKPM在生命科学领域的应用前景进行了一些思考。这项工作并非旨在全面呈现这一新兴情况,但我们认为现在是时候关注SKPM的这类应用,并应对相关挑战,如在液体中测量以及与其他电势读出技术进行定量比较。