Open AccessTwo high-yield complementary methods to sort cell populations by their 2D or 3D migration speed
Author(s) -
Aditya Arora,
Jorge Luis Galeano Niño,
Myint Zu Myaing,
Shumei Chia,
Bakya Arasi,
Andrea Ravasio,
Ruby YunJu Huang,
Ramanuj DasGupta,
Maté Biro,
Virgile Viasnoff
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
molecular biology of the cell
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.463
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1939-4586
pISSN - 1059-1524
DOI - 10.1091/mbc.e20-07-0466
Subject(s) - biology , sort , phenotype , computational biology , transcriptome , cell migration , immune system , microbiology and biotechnology , cell , genetics , gene , computer science , gene expression , information retrieval
The potential to migrate is one of the most fundamental functions for various epithelial, mesenchymal, and immune cells. Image analysis of motile cell populations, both primary and cultured, typically reveals an intercellular variability in migration speeds. However, cell migration chromatography, the sorting of large populations of cells based on their migratory characteristics, cannot be easily performed. The lack of such methods has hindered our understanding of the direct correlation between the capacity to migrate and other cellular properties. Here, we report two novel, easily implementable and readily scalable methods to sort millions of live migratory cancer and immune cells based on their spontaneous migration in two-dimensional and three-dimensional microenvironments, respectively. Correlative downstream transcriptomic, molecular and functional tests reveal marked differences between the fast and slow subpopulations in patient-derived cancer cells. We further employ our method to reveal that sorting the most migratory cytotoxic T lymphocytes yields a pool of cells with enhanced cytotoxicity against cancer cells. This phenotypic assay opens new avenues for the precise characterization of the mechanisms underlying hither to unexplained heterogeneities in migratory phenotypes within a cell population, and for the targeted enrichment of the most potent migratory leukocytes in immunotherapies.