New Publication shows Advantages of using HoloMonitor® for Cell Movement Assessment

Understanding of cell movements is essential in many aspects of cell biology research, and crucial not least in cancer research. Cell movements have a key role both when it comes to exploring how unharmful cells transform into dangerous cancer cells, and in the search for new therapeutic strategies based on the human body´s own defense mechanisms, the immune system.

Recent development has turned HoloMonitor into a fantastic tool for exploring and mapping cell movements, both in single-cell studies and population-based experiments. Now Robert L Judson and colleagues at UCSF in San Francisco, a PHI Center of Excellence, have published data showing the benefits of using HoloMonitor for cell movement studies. In their publication Evaluation of Holographic Imaging Cytometer HoloMonitor M4® Motility Applications, Cytometry Part A, Nov 2018, the HoloMonitor software modules for cell tracking and wound healing analysis were evaluated and compared to the more conventional methods, transwell migration and transwell invasion.

Results

The publication shows that both HoloMonitor modules yielded reproducible results that were well-correlated with the traditional assays, and at the same time significant benefits were provided. The wound healing assay was found to be the most tractable and automated method, while the cell tracking module enabled identification of hyper-motile sub populations. The authors empathize that these cells may be further characterized “Since HoloMonitor M4 also reports on morphological properties of each cell, further analyses could be conducted to identify variances in morphology associated with differential behavior”.

Results from Y Zhang and R L Judson, Cytometry Part A, 2018. The WM793 cell line was derived from a primary human melanoma and is non-metastatic. The 1205Lu cell line is a spontaneous metastatic cell line.

Conclusion

The authors conclude “Both HoloMonitor Track Cell module and the Wound Healing Assay were found to be well-correlated with established standards, yielded reproducible results, and at the same time offered distinct advantages over the transwell assays, including the use of standard culture conditions, cell densities and vessels and the ability to use the assayed cells for other purposes upon completion.”

About HoloMonitor

HoloMonitor is an all-in-one solution for label free live cell imaging, designed for all cell biologists. The system is affordable, convenient and fits into the cell incubator. Kinetic live cells studies are easily set up without the need for any labels, stains, complicated additional software, or devices.