Fluorescence-based 96-well assays for investigating chemotaxis, cell migration, and cell invasion.
The Cultrex® Cell Invasion Assay is designed to accelerate the screening process for compounds that influence cell migration through extracellular matrices. Invasive migration is a fundamental function underlying cellular processes such as angiogenesis, embryonic development, immune response, metastasis, and invasion of cancer cells. This assay offers a flexible, standardized, high-throughput format for quantitating the degree to which invasive cells penetrate a barrier consisting of basement membrane components in response to chemoattractants and/or inhibiting compounds.
Cultrex BME Cell Invasion Assay (Catalog # 3455-096-K)
This 96-well assay includes Cultrex BME, which consists of laminin I, type IV collagen, entactin, and heparan sulfate proteoglycan. Cell suspensions are applied to BME-coated cell invasion chambers (included in kit). The invasive capacity of a given cell sample is determined by measuring Calcein AM fluorescence.
Kit Contents
- Cell Invasion Chamber
- BME Solution*
- Coating Buffer
- Cell Wash Buffer
- Cell Dissociation Solution
- Calcein AM
*Kits are also available to test cell invasion using barriers that are composed specifically of Laminin I (Catalog # 3456-096-K), Collagen I (Catalog # 3457-096-K), and Collagen IV (Catalog # 3458-096-K).
Since different cell lines and different treatments can result in a wide range of invasive potentials, the permissiveness of the matrix may be optimized for each experiment by adjusting the coating concentration
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Illustration of a Cell Invasion Assay. The invasion chamber consists of two chambers separated by a filter coated with BME or different ECM components. The cell suspension is placed in the top chamber, and incubated in the presence of test media containing specific chemoattractants in the bottom chamber. Cells migrate from the top chamber through the coated filter pores to the bottom of the filter. Cell dissociation/Calcein AM solution is placed in the bottom chamber to dissociate the migrating cells from the filter and add a fluorescent label. Fluorescence in the bottom chamber is proportional to the number of migrating cells. |
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Quantification of Cell Invasion. Cultrex Cell Invasion Assay Kits (Catalog # 3455-096-K, 3456-096-K, 3457-096-K, 3458-096-K) were used to quantify the ability of 10% FBS to stimulate the migration of fibroblastic cell lines on different extracellular matrix components. Data from four experiments was quantified for both non-invasive (NIH-3T3) and invasive (HT-1080) cell types. |
Cultrex is a registered trademark of Trevigen, Inc.