Balancing forces: architectural control of mechanotransduction

By Christopher C DuFort, Matthew J. Paszek, Valerie M. Weaver. Nature reviews. Molecular cell biology, 2011

973 citations recorded by the source corpus.

All cells exist within the context of a three-dimensional microenvironment in which they are exposed to mechanical and physical cues. These cues can be disrupted through perturbations to mechanotransduction, from the nanoscale-level to the tissue-level, which compromises tensional homeostasis to promote pathologies such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. The mechanisms of such perturbations suggest that a complex interplay exists between the extracellular microenvironment and cellular function. Furthermore, sustained disruptions in tensional homeostasis can be caused by alterations in the extracellular matrix, allowing it to serve as a mechanically based memory-storage device that can perpetuate a disease or restore normal tissue behaviour.

Subfields: Cell Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/681c5ae2315f752f43dedc7dcc4f854ee61ba054

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cell Biology

Citations in the corpus

Physics of adherent cells (2013, background): “On the scientific side, however, the fundamentals of these processes are puzzling and not yet well understood, despite their importance in development, health and disease (DuFort et al., 2011; Janmey and Miller, 2011).”
Engineering microscale topographies to control the cell–substrate interface (2012, background): “Another type of physical cue displayed by the ECM is mechanical stiffness through which, similar to topography, a diverse set of cellular functions can be modulated [17,18].”
A Review of Optical Coherence Elastography: Fundamentals, Techniques and Prospects (2014, positive): “Studies using such tools are revealing the complex interplay that exists between the genesis of disease and cellular mechanics [73].”
Extracellular matrix: a dynamic niche component during cancer progression (2012, positive): “…perceives external forces (Paszek et al., 2005; Lopez et al., 2008; Gehler et al., 2009) and thus pro vides a major environmental cue that determines cell behavior (Kölsch et al., 2007; Montell, 2008; FernandezGonzalez et al., 2009; Pouille et al., 2009; Solon et al., 2009; DuFort et al., 2011).”
Extracellular matrix: A dynamic microenvironment for stem cell niche (2014, background): “tion [11,13], and that tissue elasticity is altered during aging, disease and injury [18,76].”