Describing directional cell migration with a characteristic directionality time.

ABSTRACT: Many cell types can bias their direction of locomotion by coupling to external cues. Characteristics such as how fast a cell migrates and the directedness of its migration path can be quantified to provide metrics that determine which biochemical and biomechanical factors affect directional cell migration, and by how much. To be useful, these metrics must be reproducible from one experimental setting to another. However, most are not reproducible because their numerical values depend on technical parameters like sampling interval and measurement error. To address the need for a reproducible metric, we analytically derive a metric called directionality time, the minimum observation time required to identify motion as directionally biased. We show that the corresponding fit function is appli

SUBMITTER: Loosley AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4439174 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature