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

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 fr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cellular and molecular bioengineering 2017-02, Vol.10 (1), p.89-101
Main Authors: Lalli, Mark L., Wojeski, Brooke, Asthagiri, Anand R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adhesion
Algorithms
Automation
Bioengineering
Biological and Medical Physics
Biomaterials
Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering
Biomedical Engineering/Biotechnology
Biophysics
Cell adhesion & migration
Cell Biology
Clusters
Electric fields
Engineering
Manuals
Migration
Progressions
Protein expression
Scientific imaging
Tracking
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Summary: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-cadherin knockdown. Decreased electrotaxis is also observed in isolated cells at intermediate electric fields, suggesting an adhesion-independent role of E-cadherin in regulating electrotaxis. In additional support of an adhesion-independent role of E-cadherin, isolated cells with reduced E-cadherin expression reoriented within an applied electric field 60% more quickly than control. These results have implications for the role of E-cadherin expression in electrotaxis and demonstrate proof-of-concept of an automated algorithm that is broadly applicable to the analysis of collective migration in a wide range of physiological and pathophysiological contexts.
ISSN:1865-5025
1865-5033
DOI:10.1007/s12195-016-0471-6