Automatic cell tracking applied to analysis of cell migration in wound healing assay.

The wound healing assay in vitro is widely used for research and discovery in biology and medicine. This assay allows for observing the healing process in vitro in which the cells on the edges of the artificial wound migrate toward the wound area. The influence of different culture conditions can be measured by observing the change in the size of the wound area. For further investigation, more detailed measurements of the cell behaviors are required. In this paper, we present an application of automatic cell tracking in phase-contrast microscopy images to wound healing assay. The cell behaviors under three different culture conditions have been analyzed. Our cell tracking system can track individual cells during the healing process and provide detailed spatio-temporal measurements of cell behaviors. The application demonstrates the effectiveness of automatic cell tracking for quantitative and detailed analysis of the cell behaviors in wound healing assay in vitro.