Measurement of cell motility and morphology with an automated microscope system

A method is presented which provides quantitative descriptions of the morphology and motility behaviour of a large number of unperturbed individual cells. For that, a microscope system has been developed that performs automated tracking of motile mammalian cells in tissue culture and the concurrent measurement of cell morphology. Experiments using 3T3 mouse fibroblasts show that simple global morphological features, such as degree of cell elongation, correlate with the motile behaviour of individual cells. Combined data from many cells following trypsinization and replating show the time course of the spreading of cells, measured by increase in average cell area, and the onset of cell polarization, measured by change in average cell circularity. Methods for describing fibroblast morphology and changes in morphology are discussed.