Download Videomicroscopic study of cell motility and proliferation in vitro

Videomicroscopic study of cell motility and proliferation in vitro
- Biological physics in cell biology
Time-lapse imaging is a valuable tool for cell biologists to describe
the dynamics of cell behaviour. A powerful computer-aided videomicroscopy
system and data analysis procedure as well as characterization of motility
and proliferation of cultured cells in a variety of biological systems will
be presented.
I. Cell cultures of human malignant brain tumors with uniform histopathological
grading and proliferative capacity displayed distinct exponential velocity
distribution and characteristic average velocities.
II. This tumor cell cultures were also used to model the effect of therapeutic
irradiation in vitro. Dose-dependent cell enlargement and inhibition of cell
proliferation was found within one week following a single irradiation.
A controversial motility enhancing effect of sublethal radiation was observed.
III. Increased motility, path searching activity and intensified dynamism of
processes were measured in primary cultures of Müller glia cells in response
to the extracellular matrix molecule laminin-1.
These findings indicate that statistical evaluation of physical
parameters of cell behaviour obtained from in vitro videomicroscopic
experiments can provide both physiologically or developmentally relevant
informations and additional tools for tumour diagnosis and for testing
different therapeutic modalities.
Preliminary results about the measurement of cell-adhesion and viscoelastic
properties of three dimensional cell aggregates formed by a series of brain
tumor cell lines and tether pulling experiments using magnetic tweezers will
also be presented.