Institute for Medicine and Engineering Papers
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
March 2002
Abstract
The endothelium, a single layer of cells that lines all blood vessels, is the focus of intense interest in biomechanics because it is the principal recipient of hemodynamic shear stress. In arteries, shear stress has been demonstrated to regulate both acute vasoregulation and chronic adaptive vessel remodeling and is strongly implicated in the localization of atherosclerotic lesions. Thus, endothelial biomechanics and the associated mechanotransduction of shear stress are of great importance in vascular physiology and pathology. Here we discuss the important role of the cytoskeleton in a decentralization model of endothelial mechanotransduction. In particular, recent studies of four-dimensional cytoskeletal motion in living cells under external fluid mechanical forces are summarized together with new data on the spatial distribution of cytoskeletal strain. These quantitative studies strongly support the decentralized distribution of luminally imposed forces throughout the endothelial cell.
Keywords
shear stress, green fluorescent protein, vimentin, intermediate filaments, decentralization model, mechanotransduction
Date Posted: 11 August 2008
This document has been peer reviewed.
Comments
Postprint version. Published in Annals of Biomedical Engineering, Volume 30, Number 3, March 2002, pages 284-296.
Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1114/1.1467926