Departments of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering
Rice University
Houston, TX 77005-1892
The interactions of integrins with extracellular matrix proteins are important in modulating the migration of lymphocytes through body tissues. Using video microscopy and digital image analysis, we studied the migration of Jurkat cells (a T lymphoblastoid cell line) on cell culture plates coated with various concentrations of human plasma fibronectin. The remaining binding sites on the tissue culture plates were blocked by adsorbing bovine serum albumin (BSA) before cell seeding. Analysis of cell trajectory data using the persistent random walk model revealed that the random motility coefficients m varied significantly during the early stages of the experiment (0-4 hr after seeding) before reaching a constant, steady-state value in each case. Both the trends and the magnitude of these transient changes depended on the fibronectin concentration. Measurements performed after the initial transient revealed that increasing fibronectin concentrations resulted in higher random motility coefficients for the cells. Our results showed that cell migration speeds remained relatively constant regardless of the fibronectin concentration and, therefore, the random motility coefficients were controlled by changes in the persistence of cell movement.