Our can quickly locateaccurately measure assembled collagen fibrils requires the customized coaxial system of atomic force microscopyconfocal microscopy. We employed an in vitro cell culture platform with fibroblastscollagen fibrils labelled with different fluorescence proteins. While confocal microscope is used for detecting fluorescence contour of the cellcollagen fibrils, the atomic microscope can be used to detect the topographystiffness of the cellcollagen fibril at the same field. This low-cost, high-qualityhigh-throughput method can efficiently study how interactions between living cellstheir extracellular matrix (e.g., collagen fibers) result in the disease of tissue fibrosis.

The currently established tissue fibrosis drug screening platform harbors two major breakthrough concepts: (1) Atomic forceconfocal microscopy coaxial system. This system can quickly establish the fluorescence map of cellscollagen fibers, allowing nano-scale precision measurement of the mechanical properties of living cellscollagen fibers such as stiffness. (2) In vitro 3-D cell culture system for tissue fibrosis. TGF-β can increase the degree of fibrosis in the system,can be inhibited by drugs that gradually slow down the contractile force of cellscross-linking of extracellular collagen fibers.

It can effectively replace the traditional mode of animal experimentsgreatly reduce the number of experimental animals, meeting the ethicalsafety issues of animal experiments. This system has nanometer-level resolutionis suitable for the research of various fibrosis-related diseases. Through the advantages of simple cell culture processrapid measurement, it provides the industry with rapid screening of suitable drugs for clinical trials, greatly reducing researchdevelopment costsspeeding up drug development.