Using the Dunn Chemotaxis Chamber to Analyze Primary Cell Migration in Real Time

• DOI: 10.1007/978-1-61779-207-6_4
• Publication Date: 2011-07-11T21:48:57Z
• Authors: Sanjay Chaubey; Anne J. Ridley; Claire M. Wells
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; 0303 health sciences; Chemotaxis; Macrophages; Cell Culture Techniques; 610; Cell Separation; Time-Lapse Imaging; 3. Good health; 03 medical and health sciences; Mice; 616; Animals; Cell Migration Assays

The directed migration of cells (chemotaxis) occurs not only during wound healing and inflammatory responses but also during embryonic development. However, the intracellular signaling pathways that enable a cell to detect a chemoattractant and subsequently migrate toward the source are not clearly defined. The Dunn chemotaxis chamber in conjunction with time-lapse microscopy is a powerful tool that enables the user to observe directly the morphological response of cells to a chemoattractant in real time. Here, using the Dunn chemotaxis chamber, we describe the response of murine bone marrow-derived macrophages to colony stimulating factor-1. This is a particularly useful protocol as it can be adapted to study bone marrow-derived macrophages isolated from genetically modified mice and thus study the requirement of a specific protein in cell migration and chemotaxis.