Fig. 3
From: Sex-based differences in cell migration on aligned topographies
Female and male Schwann cells possess inherent sex-based differences on flat laminin-coated substrates. (A) Sample cell path with cellular morphology at several times (t). Both path and cell shape are noted, with shapes shown from each hour of the capture. (B, C) Cell paths of female and male cells, respectively, are plotted over the course of the 24 h, with starting points centered at 0,0. (D) Ensemble average MSD curves on a log–log scale indicated significant differences in fit parameters each model. (E) According to the anomalous migration model, male cells exhibited a greater α parameter (α = 1.41 ± 0.24) than females (α = 1.32 ± 0.21), although both sexes were superdiffusive (1 < α < 2). (F) In addition, male cells persisted in one direction longer than female cells as calculated by PR, and (G) female Schwann cells had higher average instantaneous speeds than male Schwann cells (\(\langle S\rangle\) female = 0.51 ± 0.31 µm/min; \(\langle S\rangle\) male = 0.33 ± 0.14 µm/min). Three biological replicates (N = 3) were completed per sex, where at least 100 individual cells were included (nmale = 113, nfemale = 121). Statistical analyses for the α parameters and average speeds were calculated using two-tailed unpaired t-test. Error bar: standard deviation.
