Quantification of Cancer Cell Migration with an Integrated Experimental-Computational Pipeline

Abstract

We describe an integrated experimental-computational pipeline for quantifying cell migration in vitro. This pipeline is robust to image noise, open source, and user friendly. The experimental component uses the Oris cell migration assay (Platypus Technologies) to create migration regions. The computational component of the pipeline creates masks in Matlab (MathWorks) to cell-covered regions, uses a genetic algorithm to automatically select the migration region, and outputs a metric to quantify the migration of cells. In this work we demonstrate the utility of our pipeline by quantifying the effects of a drug (Taxol) and of the secreted Anterior Gradient 2 (sAGR2) protein in the migration of MDA-MB-231 cells (a breast cancer cell line). In particular, we show that blocking sAGR2 reduces migration of MDA-MB-231 cells.