Analysis of cell dispersion and migration by video-microscopy

In different physiopathological situations such as embryogenesis, wound repair and tumor invasion, isolated cells, or cell populations exhibit changes to their normal behavior and may acquire different migratory phenotypes. Live-cell imaging associated with the use of appropriate in vitro models in culture has become a powerful analytical tool for studying factors involved in cell migration and in cell-to-cell interactions. The scope of this chapter is to give an overview of in vitro models of cell migration and the technical advances permitting multiparameter quantification. The chapter hereby provides a detailed description of two-dimensional and three-dimensional approaches of cell dispersion and migration and finally gives a brief insight on computational quantification of the cell behavior.