2026/01/06 by L. Conti, Andrea Ridolfi, Anne Borup +6 · 1 voice
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Physics and Astronomy · #Extracellular vesicles in disease #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Lipid Membrane Structure and Behavior
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/jmi.70060
openalex publication_date 2026/01/06 · openalex created_date 2026/01/08 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We herein investigate the effects of varying the main experimental variables in one of the most used protocols for extracellular vesicle (EV) immobilisation on substrates for subsequent atomic force microscopy (AFM) quantitative morphometry and nanoindentation performed in liquid. We introduce the parameter Q as a quantitative measure of total adsorbed material and show how it can be used as an estimator of relative sample concentrations across multiple AFM imaging experiments. We show how Q is logarithmically dependent on substrate charge density, whereas the EV contact angle (CA) surprisingly does not follow the same dependence. Finally, we propose an optimised protocol for AFM quantitative morphometry in air that yields the same EV size distributions obtained in liquid.