Cell Motility and Cell Migration

Preadipocyte differentiation from elongated structures to rounded adipocytes is adipogenesis. During the process cell cytoskeleton undergoes changes, which in turn alterate single-cell motility. In this work M. Lusting with colleagues for the first time evaluate differences between the motility of nondifferenciated preadipocytes and differentiated mature adipocytes using hologprahic imaging. Authors have used HoloMonitor M4 to show that preadipocytes move faster and further than adipocytes, idicating that cell cytoskeleton is altered during cell differentiation.

Commentary article discussing the fundamental role of cell movement studies in cancer research. Advantages of the HoloMonitor Cell Tracking and Wound Healing Applications over the transwell migration and invasion assays are highlighted, and includes the possibility to use the cells in experiments for other purposes after completing the imaging. In addition to single cell tracking, the HoloMonitor technology also benefits from the fact that morphology analysis can be performed of each cell. The author concludes that this indeed opens up for almost unlimited possibilities to perform cell morphology analysis using this methodology, since each image is very rich in cellular information.

The HoloMonitor software modules for cell tracking and wound healing analysis were evaluated and compared to the more conventional methods transwell migration and transwell invasion. Both HoloMonitor modules were found to be well-correlated with established standards, yielded reproducible results, and at the same time offered distinct advantages. The wound healing assay was the most tractable and automated method with good reproducibility, while the cell tracking module enabled identification of hypermobile subpopulations.

The article presents a single cell analysis of cell cycle and cell movement parameters of cells seeded on nanowires using HoloMonitor M4 for time-lapse imaging. Nanowires are presently investigated in the context of various biological and medical applications. In general, these studies are population-based, which results in sub-populations being overlooked. Altogether, this study highlight the importance of performing single cell analysis to increase our understanding of the versatility of cell behavior on different substrates.

The tumor microenvironment in vivo is not limited to the tumor cells themselves but also includes many kinds of immune cells. In this study the researchers explored cytotoxic effects of neutrophils in a co-culture with murine tumor cells. To exert their cell killing effect the neutrophils must reach the target cells, i.e. tumor cells. Using the HoloMonitor cell motility and migration assays the scientists could explore how the ability of the neutrophils to approach the cancer cells was affected during various conditions. Their findings are also supported and visualized in an associated time-lapse movie.