| Summary: | Cytology: Nanodot stripe assay for studying cell haptotaxis Critical to cell guidance and development, haptotaxis is directional cell movement in response to an adhesive substrate, and a method has been developed using nanodot stripe assays (NSAs) to systematically study haptotaxis that supersedes conventional stripe assays. Hitherto, haptotaxis has been studied in vitro using standard stripe assays, which offer only a binary choice between full or zero response to a protein: the assays measure cellular responses under extreme conditions that do not reflect in vivo situations. However, a group headed by David Juncker at McGill University, Canada has succeeded in producing NSAs, which are formed by adjacent stripes of nanodot arrays, that in addition to the extremes, include 5 intermediate surface densities. The team used a combination of 21 NSAs of the Netrin-1 protein to study the migration choices of cells to both the extreme and 20 intermediate conditions. The authors believe their approach can better elucidate haptotactic choices and mechanisms.
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