In vitro migration assays

The timely recruitment of innate and adaptive immune cells to sites of inflammation and repair is essential for host defense against pathogens and repair of damaged tissues. The development of bioassays such as in vitro chemotaxis assays played an important role in the original purification of chemoattractant cytokines including interleukin-1 and the CC and CXC chemokines. The earliest chemotaxis methods were based on the principle of the Boyden chamber, first described in 1962. In this chapter we give detailed protocols for more recent techniques that allow determination of macrophage chemotaxis in real time. These techniques have given new insights into the regulation of macrophage responses to chemotaxis in vitro and in vivo.