Electrotaxis of alveolar epithelial cells in direct-current electric fields / 中华创伤杂志(英文版)

PURPOSE@#This study aims to elucidate the electrotaxis response of alveolar epithelial cells (AECs) in direct-current electric fields (EFs), explore the impact of EFs on the cell fate of AECs, and lay the foundation for future exploitation of EFs for the treatment of acute lung injury.@*METHODS@#AECs were extracted from rat lung tissues using magnetic-activated cell sorting. To elucidate the electrotaxis responses of AECs, different voltages of EFs (0, 50, 100, and 200 mV/mm) were applied to two types of AECs, respectively. Cell migrations were recorded and trajectories were pooled to better demonstrate cellular activities through graphs. Cell directionality was calculated as the cosine value of the angle formed by the EF vector and cell migration. To further demonstrate the impact of EFs on the pulmonary tissue, the human bronchial epithelial cells transformed with Ad12-SV40 2B (BEAS-2B cells) were obtained and experimented under the same conditions as AECs. To determine the influence on cell fate, cells underwent electric stimulation were collected to perform Western blot analysis.@*RESULTS@#The successful separation and culturing of AECs were confirmed through immunofluorescence staining. Compared with the control, AECs in EFs demonstrated a significant directionality in a voltage-dependent way. In general, type Ⅰ alveolar epithelial cells migrated faster than type Ⅱ alveolar epithelial cells, and under EFs, these two types of cells exhibited different response threshold. For type Ⅱ alveolar epithelial cells, only EFs at 200 mV/mm resulted a significant difference to the velocity, whereas for, EFs at both 100 mV/mm and 200 mV/mm gave rise to a significant difference. Western blotting suggested that EFs led to an increased expression of a AKT and myeloid leukemia 1 and a decreased expression of Bcl-2-associated X protein and Bcl-2-like protein 11.@*CONCLUSION@#EFs could guide and accelerate the directional migration of AECs and exert antiapoptotic effects, which indicated that EFs are important biophysical signals in the re-epithelialization of alveolar epithelium in lung injury.

A simple microfluidic chip technology for assaying electrotaxis of cancer cells / 军事医学

Objective To develop a simple microfluidic chip technology for analyzing the electrotaxis of cancer cells . Methods The basic structure of the proposed microfluidic electrotaxis chip included a straight microchannel and liquid storage pools located on both sides of the microchannel .Two platinum electrodes were inserted into the liquid pools to create a controllable direct current ( DC ) field in the microchannel .The distribution and strength of the DC field in the microchannel was analyzed by the finite element analysis software COMSOL multiphysics and experiment tests .Finally, the electrotactic behavior of the rhabdomyosarcoma RD cells in the DC field of different strength was characterized using the accumulated distance, average velocity, x forward migration index ( xFMI) and y forward migration index ( yFMI) as quantitative parameters.Results The results of element analysis and experiments showed that the structure of the designed microfluidic electrotaxis chip was able to guarantee a uniform and strength-controllable DC field in the microchannel .The experiment of cell electrotaxis showed that the RD cells migrated toward the anode of the DC field .Meanwhile , the values of xFMI and accumulated distance for RD cells increased with the enlargement of the DC field , with the strength ranging from 188 to 1320 V/m.Conclusion The microfluidic chip technology developed in this paper for assaying the electrotaxis of cancer cells is simple and easily implementable , and it can be used for studies of the electrotactic behavior and underlying mechanisms of various cancer cells and normal cells in the future .