Wu Shang-Ying, Hou Hsien-San, Sun Yung-Shin, Cheng Ji-Yen, Lo Kai-Yin
Department of Agricultural Chemistry, National Taiwan University , Taipei 10617, Taiwan.
Research Center for Applied Sciences , Academia Sinica, Taipei 11529, Taiwan.
Biomicrofluidics. 2015 Oct 6;9(5):054120. doi: 10.1063/1.4932662. eCollection 2015 Sep.
Cell migration is an essential process involved in the development and maintenance of multicellular organisms. Electric fields (EFs) are one of the many physical and chemical factors known to affect cell migration, a phenomenon termed electrotaxis or galvanotaxis. In this paper, a microfluidics chip was developed to study the migration of cells under different electrical and chemical stimuli. This chip is capable of providing four different strengths of EFs in combination with two different chemicals via one simple set of agar salt bridges and Ag/AgCl electrodes. NIH 3T3 fibroblasts were seeded inside this chip to study their migration and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in response to different EF strengths and the presence of β-lapachone. We found that both the EF and β-lapachone level increased the cell migration rate and the production of ROS in an EF-strength-dependent manner. A strong linear correlation between the cell migration rate and the amount of intracellular ROS suggests that ROS are an intermediate product by which EF and β-lapachone enhance cell migration. Moreover, an anti-oxidant, α-tocopherol, was found to quench the production of ROS, resulting in a decrease in the migration rate.
细胞迁移是多细胞生物体发育和维持过程中所涉及的一个重要过程。电场（EFs）是已知会影响细胞迁移的众多物理和化学因素之一，这种现象被称为趋电作用或趋 galvanotaxis 作用。在本文中，开发了一种微流控芯片来研究细胞在不同电刺激和化学刺激下的迁移情况。该芯片能够通过一组简单的琼脂盐桥和 Ag/AgCl 电极，结合两种不同的化学物质提供四种不同强度的电场。将 NIH 3T3 成纤维细胞接种到该芯片内，以研究它们在不同电场强度和β-拉帕醌存在的情况下的迁移以及活性氧（ROS）的产生。我们发现，电场和β-拉帕醌水平均以电场强度依赖的方式提高了细胞迁移率和活性氧的产生。细胞迁移率与细胞内活性氧含量之间存在很强的线性相关性，这表明活性氧是电场和β-拉帕醌增强细胞迁移的中间产物。此外，发现抗氧化剂α-生育酚可抑制活性氧的产生，从而导致迁移率降低。
