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Atomic force microscopy (AFM) andscanning ion conductance microscopy(SICM) are excellent and commonly used techniques for imaging thetopography of living cells with high resolution. We present a directcomparison of AFM and SICM for imaging microvilli, which are smallfeatures on the surface of living cells, and for imaging the shapeof whole cells. The imaging quality on microvilli increased significantlyafter cell fixation for AFM, whereas for SICM it remained constant.The apparent shape of whole cells in the case of AFM depended on theimaging force, which deformed the cell. In the case of SICM, celldeformations were avoided, owing to the contact-free imaging mechanism.We estimated that the lateral resolution on living cells is limitedby the cell’s elastic modulus for AFM, while it is not forSICM. By long-term, time-lapse imaging of microvilli dynamics, weshowed that the imaging quality decreased with time for AFM, whileit remained constant for SICM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]