How can I make cancer cells moving faster than they naturally did?Or is there any chemoattractant or method that could promote the motility of cancer cells?
The combination of TNF-alpha and TGF-beta induces the mesenchymal phenotype change of epithelial cancer cells. EMT induces the enhanced migration potential due to the cellular morphology and due to the up-regulation of MMP-2 and MMP-9.
For increasing the motility of cancer cells in vitro, one way is to create a stiffness gradient in a gel that you grow your cells on, the cells (depending on the cell type) will move faster through stiffer (or softer) substrate.
Two simple ways.
One is Scratch Healing assay. Growth cell in well (normally 24-wells is enough) until forming a singlle layer. Then make a artificial scrtch using tips. Observe the cell "recovery" speed by microscope recording of the scratch width. Cells after sratch will move much faster then regular culture condition.
Second is two chamber transwell assay. This one need to purchase special membrane coated up chamber (not cheap... so only use if you need to compare migration/invation activity). Plate cell in the up chamber with low/no serum media and down well adding with complete media (10% serum normally). Cell will migrate and adhere to the bottom (another side) of membrane through the pores on membrane. After that, fix cell with 10% formalin and staining with cristal violet. Cell migrated/ invaded number can be counted to compare.
For invasion assay, the only difference betwwen migration is one more step before plating the cell. membrane need to be coated by a layer of matrix gel to mimic inter-cellular matrix condition.
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