Measure Chemotactic Cell Migration, Invasion and Transendothelial Migration in Real Time

Cell migration is a fundamental biological process and a critical component of human development, the immune response and diseases such as tumor metastasis. Under normal, healthy conditions the capacity for cells to migrate is tightly regulated – e.g., the directed cell migration (chemotaxis) of leukocytes in response to chemokine release from damaged tissue, which plays a key role in the inflammatory response. In contrast, unregulated cell migration is a hallmark of diseases such as cancer, where metastatic cells move away from the primary tumor and establish secondary tumors at other sites in the organism.

Commonly used approaches

In vitro assays for cell migration and chemotaxis are necessary for both basic-research and drug discovery. The table below shows capabilities and challenges of some common approaches.

	Existing Boyden Chambers	Existing Scratch Wound	Microfluidic Devices
Chemotactic migration
Migration in the absence of chemotactic gradients
Low cell usage (<5,000 per well)
Suitable for non-adherent cells
Migration across a surface
Invasion through a 3D gel matrix
Integrated quantitation
Integrated cell observation
Precision, reproducibility
96-well throughput or higher
Kinetic read-out
Label-free
Workflow: set up and walk away

IncuCyte® live-cell imaging solutions

The IncuCyte® Live-Cell Analysis System provides two complementary solutions for investigating cell migration in the presence or absence of chemotactic gradients. Our novel Chemotaxis and Scratch Wound (also called Wound Healing) assays eliminate many of the drawbacks associated with common approaches and enable real-time visualization and automated analysis of migration in a 96-well format – all within your tissue culture incubator.

	IncuCyte® Chemotaxis Cell Migration	IncuCyte® Scratch Wound Migration and Invasion
Chemotactic migration
Migration in the absence of chemotactic gradients
Low cell usage (<5,000 per well)
Suitable for non-adherent cells
Migration across a surface
Invasion through a 3D gel matrix
Integrated quantitation
Integrated cell observation
Precision, reproducibility
96-well throughput or higher
Kinetic read-out
Label-free
Workflow: set up and walk away