Study on binding force by atomic force microscopy

Clarify the potential mechanism of cellular chemical processes at cellular and molecular levels in native environment is currently an important research topic in life sciences. Recent efforts in the past decade indicate that the atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a powerful tool for studying the single cells and single molecules under near-physiological conditions and AFM strongly promotes the development of nanobiotechnology. Rituximab is a monoclonal antibody against CD20, which is a member of leukocyte differentiation antigens with high expression on most B-cell lymphoma cells. In this work, the single-molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS) was applied to measure the CD20-rituximab specific binding force on Burkitt's lymphoma patient bone marrow B cells. The experimental results lay the foundation for the further investigation of the molecular mechanism of rituximab's anti-cancer effect.