Abstract:In order to solve the problem that cell chemotaxis research requires the use of relatively expensive microscope for continuous and timed image collection and analysis of cell chemotaxis, ImageJ software is required to manually track the cell movement path., a portable cell chemotaxis migration analysis system based on USB microscope was designed. The hardware of the analysis system consists of computer, USB microscope, microfluidic chip, temperature control unit and microscope support. It was used to investigate cell chemotaxis through image acquisition, image processing and various analysis algorithms. In the experiment, first of all, 90 cell images were collected within 15 min at an interval of 10 s by using USB microscope. Then the integrated software based on NI's IMAQ Vision software package was used to complete the image processing. On the one hand, the width pixels of the first and last cell images were divided into 10 parts, and cell partition count and digital score were used to preliminarily analyze the chemotaxis of cells. On the other hand, the central coordinates of the cells can be recognized and the cell motion trace can be tracked by combining the minimum distance method, and then the chemotaxis index, total migration distance, movement velocity and gradient displacement of the cells can be calculated. The performance of the portable cell chemotaxis detection system was verified by collecting and analyzing the moving images of neutrophils. At the same time, the effect of different glucose concentrations on the chemotaxis performance of neutrophils was investigated by using the system. The results show that the portable chemotactic migration analysis system can automatically analyze the cell migration index. It is concluded that the portable cell chemotaxis detection system improves the integration and portability of cell chemotaxis research.