ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the basics of cell motility and how imaging technologies have contributed to the understanding of this cellular process in both development and disease. In the seventeenth century, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a microscopist and scientist, documented what is considered to be the first cell motility event in the history of cell biology. Cell movement is a key process that is required during the development of multicellular organisms. Alterations of its basic functions can have consequences leading to pathologies, such as cancer metastasis. Studies of highly motile tumor cells have revealed that the formation of a leading-edge protrusion is the initial step of the motility cycle and is driven by actin polymerization. Mammalian cells sense, polarize, and migrate in response to chemotactic, haptotactic, and durotactic gradients during key physiological and pathological processes, including embryonic development, immune cell trafficking, wound healing, and tumor cell invasion.
