Cell complexity: Sensing stress (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, December 20, 2013, 19:06 (3778 days ago) @ David Turell

"At the cellular level, physical stress is ever-present and inescapable. Whether externally applied, as when bodies move, bend, and stretch, or internally generated by the cytoskeleton as cells change position, mechanical forces trigger changes in intracellular biochemical signaling and gene expression, influencing processes such as migration, proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. For instance, stem cells have been shown to differentiate into different cell types depending on the stiffness of the matrix on which they are grown.
 
"Force is increasingly recognized to play a vital role in regulating cell behavior and function, and researchers are beginning to elucidate the mechanisms by which cells sense and generate mechanical forces and translate them into biochemical signals—a process known as mechanotransduction. In the past few years, a number of techniques have cropped up to examine how such forces regulate biochemical signals and thus, ultimately, cell function, but many of these tools are limited to the investigation of single molecules in vitro and are challenging to use in living cells. Here, The Scientist profiles three techniques that have been developed to measure forces inside of or applied by living cells."-http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/37216/title/Sensing-a-Little-Tension/-Note biochemical signalling under gene expression control. Seems automatic to me