SICM will ultimately help researchers understand the mechanism of cell physiology in real time. One of the distinguishing functions of cell-to-cell interaction is cell adhesion, which not only corresponds to cell development but also to structural maintenance, cell migration, and pathogenesis of infectious organisms. Such adhesion molecule morphology of cells in live environments could not have been captured previously due to limitations of optical microscopes. SICM’s live cell surface imaging allows examining accurate morphological characteristics of adhesion molecules, whose physiological behavior is only detectable in living cells. In addition, time-lapse SICM imaging can be a great help in understanding the behavioral mechanisms of adhesion molecules at a fundamental level.

In this study, a cultured brain tumor cell’s adhesion molecule was visualized by SICM to investigate cell-to-cell interactional behavior. At first, the edge position of the brain tumor cell whose membrane is overlapped with the end of the other cell was observed successfully. In the acquired image, connective projections between cell A and B were identified (in green). These projections were observed to hold other cell membranes and ranged in width from 100nm to 300nm.