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Summary Does Taxol Decrease the Migration of Cells?
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A summary examining the migration of cells when subject to taxol.
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Does Taxol Decrease the Migration of Cells?Microtubules are cellular proteins that have crucial roles in cell migration
(movement). Cells undergoing migration are polarized and are structured like a boat:
they have a leading edge at the front of the cell, as well as a trailing edge at the back of
the cell. Microtubules are specifically involved in the trailing edge, acting like the rudder
of a boat, to steer the cell, while the leading edge pushes the cell forward, like the front
of a boat moving through water. For microtubules to steer the cell in a certain direction,
they must be able to quickly change their length and direction. This means that the cell
must constantly undergo reactions to add or remove microtubules. These reactions are
especially important for cells that need to migrate long distances in the body. An
example of such cell is the H1229 cancer cells that migrate from the lungs to different
organs to establish new tumours.
We performed an experiment to examine how Taxol, a drug that decreases the
rate of microtubule removal, would affect cell migration in H1229 cells. Specifically, we
wanted to know if increasing the concentration of Taxol would reduce cell migration. If
this is the case, we could give Taxol to patients with cancer to prevent cancer cells from
spreading throughout the body and causing further damage.
We hypothesized that Taxol would reduce H1229 cell migration and that higher
concentrations of Taxol would more greatly decrease migration than lower
concentrations. Therefore, cancer patients taking Taxol would have a better chance of
survival.
In our experiment, we transferred H1229 cells to well-plates and allowed them to
grow for 24 hours by providing them with optimal nutrients and environment. At this
time, H1229 cells covered the entire plate. Then, we used a sterile pipette tip to scratch
the well-plate both vertically and horizontally. As a result, the plate contained a
scratched area that had no cells within it, while the rest of the plate was filled with
H1229 cells. Then, we treated the different well-plates with different concentrations of
Taxol (0 nM for the control, 0.16 nM, 80 nM, or 1000nM). Finally, we used a light
microscope at 40x magnification to image the wells right after adding Taxol (0 hours)
and after 12 hours. At these times, we measured the distance of the gap created by the
pipet tip as an indicator of cell migration. Cells, like people, enjoy their personal space,
so they preferred to migrate to the scratched area (which was free of other cells). This
resulted in the distance of the gap created by the pipet tip decreasing, and the more
migration that occurred, the smaller the gap that was measured. Because a population
of H1229 cells takes around 30 hours to double in size, we chose to measure the size of
the gap at 0 and 12 hours, which minimized amount of cell division that would occur
(since the divided cells would require space, decreasing the gap without migrating)
while simultaneously maximizing cell migration.
Our results showed that as we increased the Taxol concentrations in a plate, the
scratched gap narrowed. A smaller gap size indicated that the cells had a reduced
migration, thereby supporting our hypothesis. Taxol attached to microtubules and made
them resistant to breaking down. As a result, these cells produced microtubules that
could not change length and direction, hindering the cell’s ability to migrate. Therefore,
we can use Taxol or other drugs that stabilize microtubules to diminish the movement of
cancerous cells and improve survivals-rates of cancer patients.
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