Measurement of the Ability of Cells to Infiltrate Normal Tissues in vitro

Abstract

Organ cultures of chorioallantoic membranes of hen eggs have been used to establish a quantitative method of measuring the infiltrative ability of a variety of normal and tumour cells. Normal fibroblasts, mouse peritoneal cells and cells of low tumorigenicity infiltrated poorly and slowly whereas most tumours infiltrated rapidly. Some cells of the more invasive tumours achieved minimum rates of migration through the normal tissue of 2-3 μm/h. One tumour line which tended to form aggregates on the chorioallantoic membrane elicited a pronounced rejection response from the ectoderm of the membrane. Colcemid, which inhibits the formation of cell processes and the directional migration of cells, and dibutyryl cyclic AMP, which restores certain aspects of normal behaviour to tumour cells in vitro, had little effect on the invasion of the membrane by tumour cells. Images Fig. 9 Fig. 10 Fig. 11 Fig. 12 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8

Collective cell migration in morphogenesis and cancer

“…Sequential photographic imaging showed that epithelial sheets move across the substrate by membrane ruffling at the free edge only, while cell-cell junctions within the moving cell group remain intact (Vaughan and Trinkaus 1966). Indirect evidence subsequently suggested, that invasive SV109 carcinoma cells penetrate the chorioallantoic membrane while maintaining cell-cell junctions and form solid cell nests in the interstitial stroma (Easty 1974). The videomicroscopic description of a collective pulling mechanism via front-rear asymmetry stems from the cluster migration model of Gordon-Kosswig melanoma cells explanted from Xiphophorus maculates.…”

“…Collective migration is seen as the invagination of germ ring cells into the embryonic shield during gastrulation in Fundulus , the closure of the dorsal neural tube in Xenopus (Keller 2002), the migration of clustered cells in the developing ovary of Drosophila (Montell 1999) and the chain migration of neural precursor cells or endothelial cells. Collective tumor invasion can further be monitored in the chick chorioalantoic membrane assay (Easty 1974).…”

Use of a reconstituted basement membrane to measure cell invasiveness and select for highly invasive tumor cells.

“…These include chicken chorioallantoic membrane (10,11), mouse urinary bladder (12), the human amnion (13) and other placental membranes (14), and the lens capsule of the eye (15,16). Such assay systems can be used to establish whether or not a cell is invasive.…”

Immunity as the predominant factor determining metastasis by murine lymphomas

“…Under phase-contrast microscopy the rosettes, defined as a nucleated cell with 3 or more attached erythrocytes, were counted. static capacity of the tumour has been postulated (Easty & Easty, 1974). We measured the relative motility of DBA2 lymphoid cells, using a cell-migration assay slightly modified from an earlier technique published by us (Currie & Sime, 1973 died much more rapidly when injected with M lymphoma than with non-M.…”