Cancer Cell Migration & Invasion
and cancer cell chemotaxis
Cancer cell migration is an important biological concept that contributes to angiogenesis, metastasis, and other oncological processes in the vasculature. Chemical messengers are integral to most cancer cell migration events and serve to direct cancer cells to tissues or the vasculature via chemotaxis. Chemotaxis is a dynamic event with numerous steps of cell communication and response. In order to examine these processes in detail over time, it is necessary to observe cells in situ.
The BioFlux system can be used for screening different types of tumor cells for invasive phenotypes, screening compounds to inhibit or otherwise affect invasion and or angiogenesis, or to study chemotaxis of circulating cells in response to stimuli or inhibition.

Invasive HT1080 cells began to migrate after 4 hours of perfusion into the matrix and continued invasion throughout the entire experiment. In contrast the MCF7 cells, were as expected completely non-invasive (not shown). Timelapse over 15 hours of either invasive (HT1080) or non-invasive cancer cells (MCF7) into Matrigel. Cell invasiveness expressed as pixel intensity over total gelled area of the channel as a function of time.
HL60 Cell Chemotaxis
HL60 cells migrating to fMLP
Key BioFlux Advantages For Cancer Cell Migration & Invasion Studies
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Timelapse data for cancer cell invasion can be collected at any frequency for any duration desired
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Better quality data with real-time measurements in situ
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Saves time by collecting data direct from the cancer cell migration/invasion assay with no transfer steps
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Create two microenvironments within a microfluidic channel using a two inlet channel and parallel flowstreams
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Cancer cell migration & invasion assays can be performed label-free