3.1.2 Scratch wound assay for endothelial cell migration
The scratch wound test is a straight forward way to measure EC migration. To depict an artificial wound, a confluent monolayer of ECs is mechanically scratched in a specific location of the well, using a cell scraping instrument or a p200 tip(Staton et al., 2009). Recently, a more sophisticated microfluidic version of the scratch wound test was created to look into how shear stress affects cell migration. This version accurately creates the fake wound with a laminar flow of trypsin solution(Wong and Gotlieb, n.d.).The rate and extent of EC migration from the remaining monolayer into the ”wound area” after the formation of a scratch wound are observed and measured using image processing. This assay allows for simple 2D horizontal X-Y plane monitoring of the migration rate. However, it has been proven that cell migration in this model also involves cell spreading and proliferation, leading to an inaccurate determination of the net migration effect.