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Article Date: June 25, 2013 - 1:00 PDT current ratings for:
Understanding of complex diseases likely to improve following the unexpected discovery of the ways Cells Move
A new discovery about how cells move within the organization can provide scientists with crucial information about the mechanisms of diseases such as the spreading of the cancer or constriction of the Airways caused by asthma. Led by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Institute for bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), investigators found that the epithelial cells - the type that form a barrier between the inside and the outside of the body, such as skin cells - move group, powered by forces both of in and from neighbouring cells - to fill the empty spaces that they encounter.
The study appears in Nature Materials advanced online edition.
"We have tried to understand the fundamental relationship between cellular movements collective and collective forces of cell phones, which may occur during the invasion of the cancer cells, for example. But, in so doing, we are fallen on a phenomenon that was totally unexpected, "said lead author Jeffrey Fredberg, Professor of Bioengineering and physiology to the investigator HSPH Department of Environmental Health and co-Minister of HSPH molecular laboratory and integrative cellular dynamics.
Biologists, engineers and physicists at HSPH and IBEC worked together to shed light on the collective cell movement because it plays a key role in functions such as the healing of wounds, organ development and tumor growth. Using a technique called stress monolayer microscopy--which they invented themselves - they have measured the forces affecting a single layer of epithelial cells in motion. They examined cells speed and direction as traction - how certain cells either pull or push themselves and thus force the collective movement.
As they expected, the researchers found that when an obstacle was placed in the path of a layer of advanced cell - in this case, a gel that provided no traction - cells settled around him, closely hugging the sides of the gel as they passed. However, the researchers also found something amazing - cells, in addition to moving forward, continued to collectively back to frost, as if the desire to fill the space empty. Researchers have dubbed this movement "kenotaxis", Greek words "keno" (empty) and "taxi" (arrangement), because it seemed that cells are trying to fill a void.
This new discovery could help researchers to better understand the behaviour of the cell - and evaluate the potential influence that behavior - in a variety of complex diseases, such as cancer, asthma, cardiovascular diseases, developmental anomalies and glaucoma. The findings could also help with regenerative medicine and tissue engineering, which rely on cell migration.
In carcinomas, for example - who represent 90% of all cancers and involve epithelial cells - new information on cell movement could improve understanding of how cancer cells migrate through the body. Research on asthma could also get a boost, because scientists believe the migration of epithelial cells damaged in the lungs are involved in narrowing of the Airways caused by the disease.
"Kenotaxis is a property of the cell collective, not the individual cell," said Jae Hun Kim, first author of the study. "It was amazing to us that the collective cell can organize itself draw systematically in one direction while moving consistently in a quite different direction. ''
Article adapted by Medical News Today press release original. Click on "references" tab above for the source.Visit our cancer / Oncology section for the latest news on this subject. Other authors HSPH included James Butler, senior lecturer on physiology in the Department of health environmental and investigator co-Minister of the laboratory; and researchers Dhananjay Tambe, Enhua Zhou Chan Young Park, Monirosadat Sadati, Park Jin-Ah, Bomi Gweon and Emil Millet.
Support for the study came from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (BFU2012-38146 FPU fellowship XS) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (PBEZP2-140047), the National Research Foundation of Korea (2012R1A6A3A03040450), the European Research Council (Grant Agreement 242993) Parker B. Francis (RK Fellowship), American Heart Association (13SDG14320004) and the National Institutes of Health (R01HL102373, R01HL107561).
"Propulsion and navigation within the advanced single layer sheet," Jae Hun Kim, Xavier Serra-Picamal, Dhananjay T. Tambe, Enhua H. Zhou, Chan Young Park, Monirosadat Sadati, Park Jin-Ah, Krishnan Ramaswamy, Bomi Gweon, Emil Millet, James P. Butler, Xavier Trepat, Jeffrey J. Fredberg, Nature of materials, online, June 23, 2013
Harvard School of Public Health
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