cell migration, cell invasion and cell proliferation assay - (Jan/22/2008 )

Hi all,
I am working with sw480 cells. I want to perform cell migration, cell invasion and cell proliferation assays and check few genes. Can anyone tell me how to do it? What are the things required and if possible the companies from where I can get them?
I don't have any idea of these as i have never done anything similar.

Thanks

Millipore/Chemicon has a number of cell invasion/migration kits and other supplies, as does Cell Biolabs. You can also buy matrigel and transwell inserts from their respective manufacturers and set up your assays yourself.

As for proliferation, there are a number of ways to measure that, depending on what exactly you're looking for. MTT/MTS assays can measure the number of living cells colorimetrically, H3-Thymidine will allow you to quantify DNA and infer cell numbers from that, or counting with a hemocytometer is possible if you're using large samples (i.e. nothing from a 96-well plate). I'm sure other people in the forum can suggest their own favorite methods of determining cell proliferation. MTT you can get in solution in a kit from ATCC, though I'm not sure about the MTS or the H3-Thymidine. Hemocytometers can be gotten from most decent biological lab suppliers, though you'll have to buy some Trypan Blue dye to differentiate between live and dead cells.

Cool,
thanks for your help.
Is using Boyden chamber of any use?

Boyden chambers are an alternative to using transwell inserts, though I've only ever used kits that had some version of the latter.

thanks