Microcarrier bead assay is another technique to conduct studies based on cell model. Due to the extremely high surface area to volume radio of micrraiers, this technique has raised much more attention and interests than conventional monolayer cell culture methods. It has been widely used in cell-based experiments including angiogenesis assays, cell infectivity and cell migration. This technique to research cell migration can be more closely mimicking the tight contact of cells in vivo, since cells can establish close cell-cell interactions on the bead in this assay. Thus, compared to other cell migration assays, the utilization of microcarrier bead assay offer the research of cell migration many advantages.
Microcarrier bead assay to measure cell migration is based on migration of cells from microcarrier beads onto culture vessel surface. Cells are cultured on carrier beads and grow to confluence on the surface of the beads. Then, the cell-coated beads are placed and incubated in cell culture medium for a defined period. When the reaction is completed, the beads are removed and the cells that have moved from the microcarrier beds to the culture vessel surface are fixed and stained. These stained cells can be detected and evaluated by microscope. Certainly, cell migration in this assay can be easily monitored by living cell microscope without fixation and staining of the cells. The high throughput imaging system allows for the accurate measurement of cell migration including kinetic experiments. In addition, due to the limited space and fairly constant amount of cell are present on the bead surface, cell migration in this assay is easily monitored and is highly reproducible.
Microcarrier bead assay in our laboratory is conducted by experienced experts. The combination with the living cell microscope offers the research of cell migration with great advantages. Cell migration can be monitored in real time and the rate of cell migration can be accurately measured at Creative Bioarray cost-effectively.
*If your organization requires signing of a confidentiality agreement, please contact us by email.
Online Inquiry
