Basic NeuroscienceMicrofluidic platform to evaluate migration of cells from patients with DYT1 dystonia

- Microfluidic chambers provide a highly quantitative means for analysis of vectorial movement of cells, including positioning of organelles within migrating cells.
- Reduced rate of migration was observed in fibroblasts from DYT1 dystonia patients as compared to controls.
- Abnormal feature in the relative positions of the Golgi and nucleus is more variable in DYT1, as compared to control cells in the process of migrating.

BackgroundMicrofluidic platforms for quantitative evaluation of cell biologic processes allow low cost and time efficient research studies of biological and pathological events, such as monitoring cell migration by real-time imaging. In healthy and disease states, cell migration is crucial in development and wound healing, as well as to maintain the body's homeostasis.New methodThe microfluidic chambers allow precise measurements to investigate whether fibroblasts carrying a mutation in the TOR1A gene, underlying the hereditary neurologic disease - DYT1 dystonia, have decreased migration properties when compared to control cells.ResultsWe observed that fibroblasts from DYT1 patients showed abnormalities in basic features of cell migration, such as reduced velocity and persistence of movement.Comparison with existing methodThe microfluidic method enabled us to demonstrate reduced polarization of the nucleus and abnormal orientation of nuclei and Golgi inside the moving DYT1 patient cells compared to control cells, as well as vectorial movement of single cells.ConclusionWe report here different assays useful in determining various parameters of cell migration in DYT1 patient cells as a consequence of the TOR1A gene mutation, including a microfluidic platform, which provides a means to evaluate real-time vectorial movement with single cell resolution in a three-dimensional environment.