Chemotaxis assay

Chemotaxis assays are experimental tools for evaluation of chemotactic ability of prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells.A wide variety of techniques have been developed. Some techniques are qualitative - allowing an investigator to approximately determine a cell's chemotacic affinity for an analyte - while others are quantitative, allowing a precise measurement of this affinity. Chemotaxis assays are experimental tools for evaluation of chemotactic ability of prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells.A wide variety of techniques have been developed. Some techniques are qualitative - allowing an investigator to approximately determine a cell's chemotacic affinity for an analyte - while others are quantitative, allowing a precise measurement of this affinity. In general, the most important requisite is to calibrate the incubation time of the assay both to the model cell and the ligand to be evaluated. Too short incubation time results no cells in the sample, while too long time perturbs the concentration gradients and measures more chemokinetic than chemotactic responses.