Label-Free Automated Cell Tracking: Analysis of the Role of E-cadherin Expression in Collective Electrotaxis.

ABSTRACT: Collective cell migration plays an important role in wound healing, organogenesis, and the progression of metastatic disease. Analysis of collective migration typically involves laborious and time-consuming manual tracking of individual cells within cell clusters over several dozen or hundreds of frames. Herein, we develop a label-free, automated algorithm to identify and track individual epithelial cells within a free-moving cluster. We use this algorithm to analyze the effects of partial E-cadherin knockdown on collective migration of MCF-10A breast epithelial cells directed by an electric field. Our data show that E-cadherin knockdown in free-moving cell clusters diminishes electrotactic potential, with empty vector MCF-10A cells showing 16% higher directedness than cells with E-cadheri

SUBMITTER: Lalli ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6816619 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature