Characterization of the role of collagen network structure and composition in cancer cell migration.
2015
The geometry of 3D collagen networks is a key factor that
influences the behavior of live cells within extracellular
matrices. This paper presents a method for automatic
quantification of the 3D collagen network geometry with fiber
resolution in confocal reflection microscopy images. The
proposed method is based on a smoothing filter and binarization
of the collagen network followed by a fiber reconstruction
algorithm. The method is validated on 3D collagen gels with
various collagen and Matrigel concentrations. The results
reveal that Matrigel affects the collagen network geometry by
decreasing the network pore size while preserving the fiber
length and fiber persistence length. The influence of network
composition and geometry, especially pore size, is
preliminarily analyzed by quantifying the migration patterns of
lung cancer cells within microfluidic devices filled with three
different hydrogel types. The experiments reveal that Matrigel,
while decreasing pore size, stimulates cell migration. Further
studies on this relationship could be instrumental for the
study of cancer metastasis and other biological processes
involving cell migration.
Keywords:
- Correction
- Source
- Cite
- Save
- Machine Reading By IdeaReader
12
References
3
Citations
NaN
KQI