A simple microfluidic strategy for cell migration assay in an in vitro wound-healing model.

In vitro scratch wound assays are commonly used strategies to measure cell repair rate, facilitating the study of cell migration, tissue reorganization, and cell division. This work presented a simple and novel microfluidic device that allowed a quantitative investigation of the cell migration and cell proliferation behaviors in an in vitro wound-healing model, especially focused on the scratch assay. The microfluidic device is composed of four units, which include cell growth regions and cell-free regions created by micropillars. Using this device, we evaluated the proliferation and migration process of human gastric epithelial cells in the presence of different concentrations of the epidermal growth factor, and investigated the migration behavior of mesenchymal stem cells toward tumor cells as well. This approach has the unique capability to create localized cell-free regions in parallel, and facilitate quantitative research on cell migration in the wound-healing process, providing a powerful platform for elucidating the mechanism of cell migration in regeneration medicine.