Dictyostelium Discoideum Dictyostelium Discoideum Movement in - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Dictyostelium Discoideum Dictyostelium Discoideum

Movement in Electric Fields

Eric Kim Advisor: Dr. Wolfgang Losert S i C G Supervisor: Can Guven

Why we study cell movement

• Cell migration is important in:
• Wound Healing

“Dicty” cells migrating on a glass surface

• Cancer metastasis
• “Dicty” is a model organism:
• Experiment goal:
• To create an apparatus for

controlling cell movement and membrane shape via an externally e b a e s ape a a e te a y applied electric field.

10x magnification Cell diameter: ~15um

Apparatus

Salt bridge Buffer reservoir Cells

• E. Field

A Metric for Cell Movement

1 r ( 

n



)

 r v



Directness:

 n v

i cos(

i

i1



)

r

Cell



r

where n is the number of cells

 E 

r v cos( )

where n is the number of cells

Cells are Directed by E. Fields

Field Applied

Cells Without Field Cell Response to 4V/cm Field

Field Applied

ss ss Directnes Directnes

Time(sec) Time(sec)

Conclusions and Future Work

• Apparatus successfully demonstrates movement

via electric field.

• Directness appears to increase with prolonged

field exposure field exposure.

• In the future, we would like to use different

potential gradients and improve the apparatus by strengthening the E. field.

Much thanks to Dr. Losert, Meghan Driscoll, Can Guven, and Colin McCann