Question

We did a cell migration experiment in Cell Biology Lab today to observe whether treated cells sped up, slowed down, or didn't affect migration. It looked like the treatment sped up cell migration. My question is can you give an example of a disease where this treatment might be helpful? How might it affect the disease?

Answer 1

The in vitro assays which involve investigation of migration of cell types are highly important in clinical aspects. Normally, these in vitro cultures are done with either a single cell type or a dual behaviour of two cell types is studied by co-culturing of two cell lines. The results of the migration assays play very important role in understanding the behaviour of these cells in vivo.

A very common example congruent with these assays is endothelial cellular migration and proliferation of pulmonary artery medial wall cells in pulmonary hypertension. In response to stress/stimuli, the endothelial cells of the pulmonary artery migrate to the medial arterial walls. This results not only in onset of immunological response in the medial wall of pulmonary arteries but also promotes hypertrophic and hyperplasic growth of the medial wall cells. This lead to onset of pulmonary hypertension which results in excessive pressure and volume overload on the right ventricles leading to dilatory cardiac hypertrophy. These diseases are difficult to diagnose, clinically alarming in nature and thus require expert supervision.

Thus, these cell-migration assays can be very helpful in understanding the mechanisms and pathogenesis of various diseases and are of clinical importance.