Roche's xCELLigence RTCA DP Instrument with CIM-Plate 16 enables real-time monitoring of cell migration

Cell migration is an important process in the development of organisms, as well as during immune surveillance and wound healing. For cancer development, the potential of cells to migrate or to grow invasively is, in addition to proliferation, the most important disease-causing factor. The inhibition of cell migration is a key target of the new anti-inflammatory therapies. In a recent study, Markus Greiner and Richard Zimmermann (Saarland University, Homburg/Saar, Germany) used the RTCA DP Instrument with the CIM-Plate 16 of Roche Applied Science (SWX:RO) (SWX:ROG) (Pink Sheets: RHHBY) to evaluate the influence of a cellular protein on the migration potential of a wide range of tumor entities represented by diverse cell lines. Their results show evidence that this protein is involved in the general migration pathway in all cancers examined, providing a possible new therapeutic target. These findings are the starting point for further investigations to understand the cellular processes involved in migration at the molecular level.

Real-time monitoring of cell migration allowed much faster collection of results compared to the endpoint measurement, providing comparable results by 18 hours instead of 72 hours cell culture. In addition, real-time monitoring of cell migration provided a clearer more precise kinetics analysis, enabling discrimination between migration and later proliferation effects. In contrast, strict reliance on the endpoint analysis would not have achieved this result.

Performing real-time monitoring of cell migration instead of endpoint measurement provided significant advantages. The new technique made possible by the xCELLigence RTCA DP Instrument using CIM-Plate 16 is much faster and less laborious. In addition, time point optimization experiments are no longer necessary as migration is monitored online. Finally, the ability to combine migration monitoring with proliferation measurements using both an E-Plate 16 to measure cell proliferation and a CIM-Plate 16 to quantify migration in a single experiment serves as a direct control showing that reduced migration is not an effect of reduced cell viability.