Year of publication:
2006
Journal name:
Annual Review of Biophysics and Biomolecular Structure
MECHANOTRANSDUCTION INVOLVING MULTIMODULAR PROTEINS: Converting Force into Biochemical Signals
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org –
Cells can sense and transduce a broad range of mechanical forces into distinct sets of biochemical signals that ultimately regulate cellular processes, including adhesion, proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. Deciphering at the nanoscale the design principles by which sensory elements are integrated into structural protein motifs whose conformations can be switched mechanically is crucial to understand the process of transduction of force into biochemical signals that are then integrated to regulate mechanoresponsive pathways. Read more »
Effect of Focal Adhesion Proteins on Endothelial Cell Adhesion, Motility and Orientation Response to Cyclic Strain.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov –
Focal adhesion proteins link cell surface integrins and intracellular actin stress fibers and therefore play an important role in mechanotransduction and cell motility. When endothelial cells are subjected to cyclic mechanical strain, time-lapse imaging revealed that cells underwent significant morphological changes with their resultant long axes aligned away from the strain direction. To explore how this response is regulated by focal adhesion-associated proteins the expression levels of paxillin, focal adhesion kinase (FAK), and zyxin were knocked down using gene silencing techniques. Read more »
Year of publication:
2009
Journal name:
Annals of Biomedical Engineering