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Published online: 14 January 2009 | doi:10.1038/nchina.2009.1

Cell migration: Follow the flickers

Felix Cheung

Introduction

© (2009) Nature

Cells are known to migrate towards calcium signals, and this directional movement is central to tissue formation and wound healing. However, intracellular calcium has been observed to be less concentrated at the front than at the back of a migrating cell, and this problem has long perplexed scientists. Chaoliang Wei and Heping Cheng at Peking University in Beijing and co-workers¹ have resolved this paradox by capturing the calcium dynamics during cell migration.

The researchers used real-time confocal microscopy to track the calcium distribution, highlighted by fluorescence, within human embryonic lung cells. They detected a shallow decreasing gradient of global calcium concentration that ran from the back to the front of the migrating cell. To their surprise, they also saw several short-lived high-calcium domains at the front of the migrating cell that flickered against the quiescent background fluorescence (see video).

These 'calcium flickers' might have activated a multitude of calcium-dependent events critical to cell polarization and movement. The researchers therefore exposed the lung cells to a chemical that was known to stimulate cell migration during wound healing.

When the chemical was applied in a direction perpendicular to cell movement, migrating fibroblasts turned towards the source of the chemical. More importantly, the calcium flicker activity in the portion facing the chemical increased, which shows that calcium flickers have an essential role in steering migrating cells in the right direction.

The authors of this work are from:
Institute of Molecular Medicine, State Key Laboratory of Biomembrane and Membrane Biotechnology, Peking University, Beijing, China; Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA.

Reference

1. Wei, C. et al. Calcium flickers steer cell migration. Nature doi:10.1038/nature07577 (2008). | Article |