Figure 1.

(A) A glass slide modified with a hydrophobic print was used in all of the procedures, from the cell culture to the AFM measurements. The samples were unroofed by micro bubbles generated from the tip of a sonication probe when the glass slide was placed under the buffer solution. (B) The improved unroofing apparatus consists of a low-power sonicator (custom-made) and stereomicroscope equipped with a position controller for the sonication probe and an LED light-sheet illumination system (asterisk) to observe the unroofing process. An arrow indicates probe of sonicator. (C) Image of unroofed NRK cells using a phase-contrast microscope. PU indicates a partially unroofed cell in which the organelles and nucleus are retained. U indicates entirely unroofed cells in which the organelles and nuclei have been removed but the cytoskeletons are retained.