Lab on a chip：基于芯片的细胞迁移检测方法

生物谷报道：由中心主任程京教授领导的生物芯片北京国家工程研究中心与清华大学医学院医学系统生物学研究中心研究团队在细胞芯片实验室研究中获得重要进展，其研究成果作为封面文章发表在生物芯片的顶尖杂志《芯片上的实验室》（Lab on a chip）6月刊上。

细胞迁移在生物体胚胎发育、伤口愈合、免疫应答等众多生物过程中起着非常关键的作用，更为重要的是，细胞迁移过程在包括肿瘤转移和炎症反应在内的多种疾病状态中都扮演着重要的角色。对于肿瘤细胞而言，其迁移特性已经成为评价抗肿瘤药物的重要特征，能够减缓肿瘤细胞迁移的药物有可能对遏制肿瘤转移起到重要的作用。

这篇论文主要介绍了一种基于芯片的细胞迁移检测方法。这种新方法集成了自组装单分子层技术和实时细胞阻抗传感技术，新颖、可靠，并且与传统方法相比，还具有实时、定量和自动化等显著优势。正因如此，这项新方法得到了业内专家的认可，英国皇家化学学会在其网站上发表评论员文章认为此项技术将为高通量的抗肿瘤转移类药物的筛选和药物研发带来光明的前景；瑞典斯德哥尔摩皇家技术学院的专家Helene Andersson Svahn教授表示“这项新技术对药物筛选和癌症治疗将产生深远的影响。”（生物谷 www.bioon.com）

生物谷推荐原始出处：

Lab on a chip，2008, 8, 872 - 878, DOI: 10.1039/b804130j，Lei Wang, Jing Cheng

An automatic and quantitative on-chip cell migration assay using self-assembled monolayers combined with real-time cellular impedance sensing

Lei Wang, Jing Zhu, Cheng Deng, Wan-li Xing and Jing Cheng

Cell migration is crucial in many physiological and pathological processes including embryonic development, immune response and cancer metastasis. Traditional methods for cell migration detection such as wound healing assay usually involve physical scraping of a cell monolayer followed by an optical observation of cell movement. However, these methods require hand-operation with low repeatability. Moreover, it's a qualitative observation not a quantitative measurement, which is hard to scale up to a high-throughput manner. In this article, a novel and reliable on-chip cell migration detection method integrating surface chemical modification of gold electrodes using self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) and real-time cellular impedance sensing is presented. The SAMs are used to inhibit cell adherence forming an area devoid of cells, which could effectively mimic wounds in a cell monolayer. After a DC electrical signal was applied, the SAMs were desorbed from the electrodes and cells started to migrate. The process of cell migration was monitored by real-time impedance sensing. This demonstrates the first occurrence of integrating cellular impedance sensing and wound-forming with SAMs, which makes cell migration assay being real-time, quantitative and fully automatic. We believe this method could be used for high-throughput anti-migratory drug screening and drug discovery.