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

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Abstract

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.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the members of the Asthagiri group for helpful discussions. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health Grant R01CA138899.

Conflict of Interest

Mark L. Lalli, Brooke Wojeski, and Anand R. Asthagiri declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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No human or animal studies were carried out by the authors for this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Mark L. Lalli, Brooke Wojeski & Anand R. Asthagiri

  2. Department of Bioengineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

    Anand R. Asthagiri

  3. Department of Biology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

    Anand R. Asthagiri

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  1. Mark L. Lalli
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Correspondence to Anand R. Asthagiri.

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Associate Editor Michael R. King oversaw the review of this article.

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Lalli, M.L., Wojeski, B. & Asthagiri, A.R. Label-Free Automated Cell Tracking: Analysis of the Role of E-cadherin Expression in Collective Electrotaxis. Cel. Mol. Bioeng. 10, 89–101 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12195-016-0471-6

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