Cell migration is a fundamental and crucial component in the survival and maintenance of multicellular organisms. Organisms rely on cellular migration during embryonic development and immune responses in order to correctly organize and heal tissues within the body. Investigation into the mechanisms by which cells migrate is essential in understanding these important processes.
One way in which cell migration dynamics can be studied is via a scratch (or wound) assay. It is done in-vitro, but greatly mimics, a cells migratory pattern in-vivo. Cells that naturally form monolayers, such as epithelial cells, are exemplary to use in this type of assay as the cells behave analogously in-vitro. The assay is done by scraping a small portion of the layer of cells off of the plate, creating a gap in between cells that were once touching in the monolayer, mimicking an epithelial “wound”. The cells are then visualized and allowed to migrate into the space where cells were scraped off of the plate, thus closing the gap and “healing the wound”. The migratory pattern that cells exhibit during this time is studied and analyzed for important parameters, such as rate and total displacement. Investigating these factors of cell migration in epithelial cells is important in order to better understand mechanisms behind the healing of epithelial abrasions, which affect a large majority of organisms.
We predict that rate of cellular movement will not be constant but will have a steady increase in rate over time as the wound healing process goes on, and slow as the wound is close to healed. The change in rate over time will be graphically reminiscent of a normal curve. Additionally. we predict that all migrating cells will have a similar average displacement over time as they fill the wound.
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