How much information can be obtained from tracking the position of the leading edge in a scratch assay?


Autoria(s): Johnston, Stuart; Simpson, Matthew; McElwain, Sean
Data(s)

01/07/2014

Resumo

Moving cell fronts are an essential feature of wound healing, development and disease. The rate at which a cell front moves is driven, in part, by the cell motility, quantified in terms of the cell diffusivity $D$, and the cell proliferation rate �$\lambda$. Scratch assays are a commonly-reported procedure used to investigate the motion of cell fronts where an initial cell monolayer is scratched and the motion of the front is monitored over a short period of time, often less than 24 hours. The simplest way of quantifying a scratch assay is to monitor the progression of the leading edge. Leading edge data is very convenient since, unlike other methods, it is nondestructive and does not require labeling, tracking or counting individual cells amongst the population. In this work we study short time leading edge data in a scratch assay using a discrete mathematical model and automated image analysis with the aim of investigating whether such data allows us to reliably identify $D$ and $\lambda$�. Using a naıve calibration approach where we simply scan the relevant region of the ($D$;$\lambda$�) parameter space, we show that there are many choices of $D$ and $\lambda$� for which our model produces indistinguishable short time leading edge data. Therefore, without due care, it is impossible to estimate $D$ and $\lambda$� from this kind of data. To address this, we present a modified approach accounting for the fact that cell motility occurs over a much shorter time scale than proliferation. Using this information we divide the duration of the experiment into two periods, and we estimate $D$ using data from the first period, while we estimate �$\lambda$ using data from the second period. We confirm the accuracy of our approach using in silico data and a new set of in vitro data, which shows that our method recovers estimates of $D$ and $\lamdba$� that are consistent with previously-reported values except that that our approach is fast, inexpensive, nondestructive and avoids the need for cell labeling and cell counting.

Formato

application/pdf

application/pdf

Identificador

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/70568/

Publicador

The Royal Society Publishing

Relação

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/70568/1/Interface_2014.pdf

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/70568/4/70568p.pdf

http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/11/97/20140325

DOI:10.1098/​rsif.2014.0325

Johnston, Stuart, Simpson, Matthew, & McElwain, Sean (2014) How much information can be obtained from tracking the position of the leading edge in a scratch assay? Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 11(97), p. 20140325.

Direitos

Copyright 2014 The Authors

Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.

Fonte

Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation; School of Mathematical Sciences; Science & Engineering Faculty

Palavras-Chave #010202 Biological Mathematics #Wound healing #Cancer #Scratch Assay #Cell motility #Cell proliferation
Tipo

Journal Article