Delineating sub-cellular mechanical properties influenced by various cellular components is a challenge in biology in health and disease. We proposed a method to statistically analyze stiffness distribution in indentation depth direction from multiple force curves measured by AFM. The stiffness distributions revealed clear depth-dependent mechanical features of cancer cells and human liver organoids treated with cell/organoid stiffening reagents, which could not be distinguished by conventional analysis that yields averaged stiffness. This work demonstrates that the analytical method is promising for evaluating heterogenous mechanical properties not only of single cell but also of multicellular tissue, and understanding of underlying stiffening mechanisms.

中文翻译：

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压痕深度方向的刚度分布分析通过使用AFM揭示了清晰的细胞和类器官的机械特征

描绘受各种细胞成分影响的亚细胞机械特性是健康和疾病生物学中的一个挑战。我们提出了一种方法，可以通过AFM测量的多条力曲线对压痕深度方向的刚度分布进行统计分析。刚度分布揭示了癌细胞和用细胞/有机体刚度试剂处理过的人肝类器官的明显的深度依赖性机械特征，这不能通过产生平均刚度的常规分析来区分。这项工作表明，该分析方法有望用于评估单细胞和多细胞组织的异质力学性能，并了解其潜在的增强机理。