µ-Slide Chemotaxis: a new chamber for long-term chemotaxis studies.

BACKGROUND: Effective tools for measurement of chemotaxis are desirable since cell migration towards given stimuli plays a crucial role in tumour metastasis, angiogenesis, inflammation, and wound healing. As for now, the Boyden chamber assay is the longstanding "gold-standard" for in vitro chemotaxis measurements. However, support for live cell microscopy is weak, concentration gradients are rather steep and poorly defined, and chemotaxis cannot be distinguished from migration in a single experiment. RESULTS: Here, we describe a novel all-in-one chamber system for long-term analysis of chemotaxis in vitro that improves upon many of the shortcomings of the Boyden chamber assay. This chemotaxis chamber was developed to provide high quality microscopy, linear concentration gradients, support for long-term assays, and observation of slowly migrating cells via video microscopy. AlexaFluor 488 dye was used to demonstrate the establishment, shape and time development of linear chemical gradients. Human fibrosarcoma cell line HT1080 and freshly isolated human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) were used to assess chemotaxis towards 10% fetal calf serum (FCS) and FaDu cells' supernatant. Time-lapse video microscopy was conducted for 48 hours, and cell tracking and analysis was performed using ImageJ plugins. The results disclosed a linear steady-state gradient that was reached after approximately 8 hours and remained stable for at least 48 hours. Both cell types were chemotactically active and cell movement as well as cell-to-cell interaction was assessable. CONCLUSIONS: Compared to the Boyden chamber assay, this innovative system allows for the generation of a stable gradient for a much longer time period as well as for the tracking of cell locomotion along this gradient and over long distances. Finally, random migration can be distinguished from primed and directed migration along chemotactic gradients in the same experiment, a feature, which can be qualified via cell morphology imaging.

Conformational dynamics of DNA-electrophoresis on cationic membranes.

The conformational dynamics of DNA molecules undergoing electrophoresis on a fluid substrate-supported cationic lipid bilayer is investigated using fluorescence microscopy. At low electrophoretic velocities, drift of 2-D random coils is observed. In contrast, at velocities larger than 0.3 mum/s, the DNA molecules stretch out and assume branched configurations. The cross-over scenario is explained by the observation that cationic lipids segregate underneath the adsorbed DNA and confine the DNA to its counter charge imprint on time scales shorter than the relaxation time of the imprint. The concept of a tube-like confinement of the DNA is corroborated by the observed 1/N size dependence of the electrophoretic mobility in analogy to the biased reptation model in gels. The role of membrane defects and possible applications of membrane-based electrophoresis in microfluidic devices are discussed.

A system for optical high resolution screening of electrical excitable cells.

The application of primary excitable cells for high content screening (HCS) requires a multitude of novel developments including cell culture and multi-well plates. Here we introduce a novel system combining optimised culture conditions of primary adult cardiomyocytes with the particular needs of excitable cells for arbitrary field stimulation of individual wells. The major advancements of our design were tested in calcium imaging experiments and comprise (i) each well of the plate can be subjected to individual pulse protocols, (ii) the software driving electrical stimulation can run as a stand-alone application but also as a plug-in in HCS software packages, (iii) the optical properties of the plastic substrate (foil) resemble those of glass coverslips fostering high resolution immersion-based microscopy, (iv) the bottom of the foil is coated with an oleophobic layer that prevents immersion oil from sticking, (v) the top of the foil is coated with an elastic film. The latter enables cardiomyocytes to display loaded contractions by mimicking the physiologically occurring local elastic network (e.g. extracellular matrix) and results in significantly increased contractions (with identical calcium transients) when compared to non-elastic substrates. Thus, our novel design and culture conditions represent an essential further step towards the application of primary cultured adult cardiomyocytes for HCS applications.