Automated, Kinetic Imaging Of Cell Migration And Invasion Assays
Metastasis, the spread of a disease-producing agent (such as cancer cells) from the primary site of disease to another part of the body, has been associated with approximately 90% of cancer related deaths. Therefore, it is the single most significant challenge to management of the disease. The metastatic process involves migration of cells away from the original tumor (many times in response to a particular regulatory factor), followed by invasion into surrounding, or sometimes distant tissue.
While many methods exist to measure the migratory and invasive characteristics of cancer cells, the advent of permeable supports has provided a simple in vitro approach to performing these types of assays. The addition of a fluorescence blocking membrane improves the accuracy of the assay, and allows the incorporation of inverted fluorescence microscopy for analysis. This provides the ability to accurately count the number of cells reaching the bottom of the membrane in real-time, instead of relying on PMT-based measurements, which are more vulnerable to background fluorescence.
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