Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Brief Communication
  • Published:

Automated velocity mapping of migrating cell populations (AVeMap)

Nature Methods volume 9, pages 1081–1083 (2012)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Characterizing the migration of a population of cells remains laborious and somewhat subjective. Advances in genetics and robotics allow researchers to perform many experiments in parallel, but analyzing the large sets of data remains a bottleneck. Here we describe a rapid, fully automated correlation-based method for cell migration analysis, compatible with standard video microscopy. This method allows for the computation of quantitative migration parameters via an extensive dynamic mapping of cell displacements.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Schematic of AVeMap.
Figure 2: AVeMap analysis of migrating monolayers.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Liang, C.-C., Park, A.Y. & Guan, J.-L. Nat. Protoc. 2, 329–333 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Simpson, K.J. et al. Nat. Cell Biol. 10, 1027–1038 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Vitorino, P. & Meyer, T. Genes Dev. 22, 3268–3281 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Yarrow, J.C., Perlman, Z.E., Westwood, N.J. & Mitchison, T.J. BMC Biotechnol. 4, 21 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Ridley, A.J. et al. Science 302, 1704–1709 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Bai, S.W. et al. BMC Biol. 9, 54 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Zaritsky, A. et al. PLoS ONE 6, e27593 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Huth, J. et al. BMC Cell Biol. 11, 24 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Hand, A.J., Sun, T., Barber, D.C., Hose, D.R. & MacNeil, S. J. Microsc. 234, 62–79 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Petitjean, L. et al. Biophys. J. 98, 1790–1800 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Angelini, T.E. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 108, 4714–4719 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Supatto, W. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102, 1047–1052 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Raffel, M., Willert, C.E. & Kompenhans, J. Particle Image Velocimetry: A Practical Guide (Springer, Berlin, 1998).

  14. Hamad, N.M. et al. Genes Dev. 16, 2045–2057 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Takenawa, T. & Suetsugu, S. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 8, 37–48 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Farooqui, R. & Fenteany, G. J. Cell Sci. 118, 51–63 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Hahn, W.C. et al. Nature 400, 464–468 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Kasai, H., Allen, J.T., Mason, R.M., Kamimura, T. & Zhang, Z. Respir. Res. 6, 56 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Rasband, W.S. ImageJ v1.46b <<http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/> (US National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, –1997–2012).

  20. Sveen, J.K. An introduction to MatPIV (Mechanics and Applied Mathematics no. 2) <http://folk.uio.no/jks/matpiv/> (Department of Math, University of Oslo, 2004).

Download references

Acknowledgements

It's a pleasure to thank L. Selfors, K. Simpson and J. Brugge (Harvard University) for giving us full access to their data. We thank A. Gautreau (Laboratoire d'Enzymologie et de Biologie Structurale, Gif-sur-Yvette) for the gift of the anti-Wave2 antibody, J.K. Sveen for fruitful discussions and H. Yevick for a critical reading of the manuscript. Financial support from the Association pour la Recherche sur le Cancer, the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (project IntegRal), the Association Christelle Bouillot, the Ligue Contre le Cancer and the Institut Curie Program 'Modèles Cellulaires' is gratefully acknowledged.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Maxime Deforet and Maria Carla Parrini: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Physico-chimie Curie, Unité Mixte de Recherche 168, Centre de Recherche, Institut Curie, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, et Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France

    Maxime Deforet, Laurence Petitjean, Axel Buguin & Pascal Silberzan

  2. Analysis of Transduction Pathways Group, Unité 830, Centre de Recherche, Institut Curie et Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Paris, France

    Maria Carla Parrini, Marco Biondini & Jacques Camonis

Authors
  1. Maxime Deforet
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Maria Carla Parrini
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Laurence Petitjean
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Marco Biondini
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Axel Buguin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Jacques Camonis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Pascal Silberzan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jacques Camonis or Pascal Silberzan.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Text and Figures

Supplementary Figures 1–9, Supplementary Tables 1 and 2 and Supplementary Discussions 1 and 2 (PDF 1789 kb)

Supplementary Software

AVeMap source code. (ZIP 1060 kb)

HEK control.

Wound-healing with control HEK-HT cells. Total film duration: 16 h. Acquisitions were made every 15 min. Images were acquired in phase-contrast mode. Total width of the observation field = 1.68 mm. (MOV 5112 kb)

HEK siWave2 (5 nM).

Wound-healing with HEK-HT cells depleted of Wave2 (siRNA concentration of 5 nM). Total film duration: 16 h. Acquisitions were made every 15 min. Images were acquired in phase-contrast mode. Total width of the observation field = 1.68 mm. (MOV 5360 kb)

HEK siWave2 (2 nM).

Wound-healing with HEK-HT cells depleted of Wave2 (siRNA concentration of 2 nM). Total film duration: 16 h. Acquisitions were made every 15 min. Images were acquired in phase-contrast mode. Total width of the observation field = 1.68 mm. (MOV 8705 kb)

A549 control.

Wound-healing with A549 cells. Total film duration: 16 h. Acquisitions were made every 15 min. Images were acquired in phase-contrast mode. Total width of the observation field = 1.68 mm. (MOV 5256 kb)

A549 TGF-β.

Wound-healing with A549 cells in the presence of TGF-β. Total film duration: 16 h. Acquisitions were made every 15 min. Images were acquired in phase-contrast mode. Total width of the observation field = 1.68 mm. (MOV 6858 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Deforet, M., Parrini, M., Petitjean, L. et al. Automated velocity mapping of migrating cell populations (AVeMap). Nat Methods 9, 1081–1083 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.2209

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.2209

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing AI and Robotics

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: AI and Robotics newsletter — what matters in AI and robotics research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: AI and Robotics