How Cells Move: Insights from Motile Immune Cells and Advanced Live Cell Imaging
Professor Jörg Renkawitz
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany
The ability of cells to move is essential for organismal development, tissue maintenance, immune responses, and cancer dissemination. Using immune cells as a highly motile cellular model, we will discuss fundamental principles of cellular movement through complex tissue microenvironments, including cytoskeletal organisation, cell polarity, and membrane dynamics. Moreover, we will present some of our newest findings, in which we discover an unexpected breakage of an intracellular organelle during cellular pathfinding.
https://www.renkawitz-lab.com/
Young shot:
Cell migration drug screening using CellTraxx, a novel automatic cell tracking tool
Birgitte Bjørnerud, PhD student
Department of Tumor Biology, Institute of Cancer research, UOS
Cell migration is important during many processes, including cancer cell invasion and metastasis. Cell migration is often studied using phase-contrast, live cell imaging microscopy. However, the tools to quantify cell movements in such images are poorly developed and are usually based on time-consuming and tedious manual tracking. We have therefore developed CellTraxx, a tool to automatically track cell movements in phase-contrast images. CellTraxx was validated to assess its ability to deliver precise, automatic tracking of various cell lines with different morphology by comparing the results to the standard, manual tracking. Furthermore, the program was used to analyse the effects on cell migration upon treatment of cells with a highly selective inhibitor library screen, targeting several signalling pathways.