Résumé
The morphology changes, in particular the organization of microtubules in mammalian nonmalignant HMEC 184A1 and cancerous MCF-7 cells during curcumin treat- ment have been investigated by utilizing multiphoton, fluorescence, and atomic force (AFM) microscopies. Fluorescence microscopy reveals formation of ring-like structures of microtubules circumscribing the nuclear area in HMEC 184A1 cells after treatment, while in MCF-7 cells, no important changes were observed. Topo- graphy analyses of fixed HMEC 184A1 and MCF-7 be- fore and after treatment with curcumin were performed using AFM and the effect of the employed cells' fixation method was investigated on MCF-7 cells. Due to its in- depth optical sectioning capacity multiphoton microscopy provided valuable complementary information on curcu- min's effect on both cells' types. Combining information provided by AFM and optical fluorescence and biphoton microscopes allows us to gain a better understanding of the cells and their curcumin-induced changes, especially for microtubules which are the main target of antitumor chemotherapy treatments. Our multimicroscopic study demonstrates that 6 h incubation with curcumin does not induce significant modifications in the interphase micro- tubules in the malignant MCF7cell, whereas it has meas- urable effects on those of the nonmalignant HMEC 184A1 cells, revealing also morphology modifications over the nuclear area of these cells.