Chemotaxis

µ-Slide Chemotaxis product page

Concentration gradients of a large variety of substances induce a directed motion of cells (chemotaxis). Due to its importance for angiogenesis, oncology, neurology, and especially immunology, the question of migration under a special stimulation gains a lot of interest. Up to now, there was no simple system to study these complicated correlations in easy optical assays.

µ-Slide Chemotaxis

To overcome the disadvantages of existing chemotaxis assays, our research team developed a µ-Slide for chemotactical analysis, the µ-Slide Chemotaxis. The special design allows high resolution microscopy, convenient liquid handling, and live cell imaging under defined linear concentration gradients. The µ-Slide Chemotaxis is optimized for analyzing the chemo-tactical response of adherent cells in linear and stable concentration profiles. Due to the gradient’s time stability of over 48 hours it is the first system able to analyze chemotaxis of slow migrating cells over days.

The µ-Slide Chemotaxis overcomes the disadvantages of existing chemotaxis chambers like the Transwell plates. A combination of microscopical access, high resolution fluorescence microscopy, optimal cell growth, and long term stability makes the system ideal for observing chemotactical behavior of adherent migrating cells.

The ibidi chemotaxis system provides answers to the following experimental questions:

• Cell morphology and viability
  
• Cell-cell interaction
  
• Relocalization of fluorescent proteins
  

Chemotaxis and Migration Tool

For data analysis from chemotaxis experiments (time stacks) we developed a free software analysis tool based on NIH‘s ImageJ. This ‘Chemotaxis and Migration Tool‘ runs as a plugin to ImageJ which is freely available and platform independent. Therefore, the software can be run on all major operating systems. The tool provides different types of graphs and statistical tests to perform advanced analysis of experimental data.

After cell tracking, the cells‘ paths can be plotted and analyzed for chemotactical effects. An easy microscopic calibration gives access to a variety of parameters. For specific analyses there are sector tools able to count cells in angular or circular areas, so called Rose plots. Statistical tests complete the software.

All calculations can be directly visualized by histograms and diagrams. Optionally, all data can be exported for further analyses. With a complete set of migrational data the user is able to quantify chemotaxis and random migration.

Together with the ImageJ plugin ‘Chemotaxis and Migration Tool‘ the µ-Slide Chemotaxis enables you to analyze the effect of drugs to the chemotactic behavior of cells in the most detailed manner possible.

Example Data

Downloads:

For data analysis we developed a Chemotaxis and Migration Tool based on ImageJ.
The tool can be downloaded here.

For tracking cells from a time stack we recommend to use Manual Tracking: http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/plugins/track/track.html