Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 29, 2025

Creating Adhesive and Soluble Gradients for Imaging Cell Migration with Fluorescence Microscopy
Published on: April 4, 2013
Mesenchymal Migration on Adhesive-Nonadhesive Alternate Surfaces in Macrophages
Fulin Xing1, Hao Dong1, Jianyu Yang1
1The Key Laboratory of Weak-Light Nonlinear Photonics of Education Ministry, School of Physics and TEDA Institute of Applied Physics, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China.
Abstract:
Mesenchymal migration usually happens on adhesive substrates, while cells adopt amoeboid migration on low/nonadhesive surfaces. Protein-repelling reagents, e.g., poly(ethylene) glycol (PEG), are routinely employed to resist cell adhering and migrating. Contrary to these perceptions, this work discovers a unique locomotion of macrophages on adhesive-nonadhesive alternate substrates in vitro that they can overcome nonadhesive PEG gaps to reach adhesive regions in the mesenchymal mode. Adhering to extracellular matrix regions is a prerequisite for macrophages to perform further locomotion on the PEG regions. Podosomes are found highly enriched on the PEG region in macrophages and support their migration across the nonadhesive regions. Increasing podosome density through myosin IIA inhibition facilitates cell motility on adhesive-nonadhesive alternate substrates. Moreover, a developed cellular Potts model reproduces this mesenchymal migration. These findings together uncover a new migratory behavior on adhesive-nonadhesive alternate substrates in macrophages.
Related Concept Videos
Cell Migration
Cytoskeletal Coordination in Cell Migration
Role of Myosin in Cell Migration
Myosin II is a hexamer comprising two heavy chains with globular heads and coiled-coil tails, two regulatory light chains, and two essential light chains. The ATPase sites on the myosin heads hydrolyze ATP, and the released phosphate generates the force for contraction....
Mesenchymal Stem Cells
Chemotaxis and Direction of Cell Migration
Intracellular Signaling Affects Focal Adhesions
Some...

