School of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medical and Veterinary Sciences, University of Bristol, University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TD, UK.
J Cell Sci. 2011 Apr 1;124(Pt 7):1017-21. doi: 10.1242/jcs.080853.
Collective cell migration is absolutely essential for a wide variety of physiological episodes including the re-epithelialisation component of tissue repair. However, the investigation of such processes has been frustrated by difficulties in quantitatively analysing the behaviours of a large body of cells within a migrating epithelial sheet, which previously required manually tracking a large number of individual cells, or using advanced computational techniques. Here, we describe a novel and simpler image subtraction method with which we can visualise and quantify collective cell mobilisation as a 'white wave' that propagates back from the leading edge of a scratch-wounded monolayer of cultured epithelial cells. Using this technique, we show that actomyosin constriction negatively regulates cell mobilisation and that the advancement of cell sheets and the mobilisation of rows of cells behind their leading edges are independently regulated. We also show that there is a finite limit to the number of rows of cells mobilised after wounding. Moreover, our data suggest that enhancing cell mobilisation, by release from myosin II contractility, accelerates the healing of large wounds in the long term, thus raising the possibility that the cell mobilisation 'wave' we reveal here might be a therapeutic target for improving wound healing.
细胞集体迁移对于多种生理过程至关重要，包括组织修复的再上皮化成分。然而，由于难以定量分析迁移上皮片中大量细胞的行为，这些过程的研究受到了阻碍，以前需要手动跟踪大量单个细胞，或者使用先进的计算技术。在这里，我们描述了一种新颖且更简单的图像减法方法，我们可以使用该方法将细胞的集体迁移可视化并量化为从划痕损伤单层培养上皮细胞的前沿向后传播的“白色波”。使用该技术，我们表明肌动球蛋白收缩负调节细胞迁移，并且细胞片的推进和其前沿后面的细胞行的迁移是独立调节的。我们还表明，在受伤后可动员的细胞行数存在有限的限制。此外，我们的数据表明，通过从肌球蛋白 II 收缩中释放来增强细胞迁移，从长远来看会加速大伤口的愈合，因此，我们在这里揭示的细胞迁移“波”可能是改善伤口愈合的治疗靶标。
