Vascular Mechanobiology: Homeostasis, Adaptation, and Disease

Cells of the vascular wall are exquisitely sensitive to changes in their mechanical environment. In healthy vessels, mechanical forces regulate signaling and gene expression to direct the remodeling needed for the vessel wall to maintain optimal function. Major diseases of arteries involve maladapti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAnnual review of biomedical engineering Vol. 23; pp. 1 - 27
Main Authors Humphrey, Jay D, Schwartz, Martin A
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Annual Reviews 13.07.2021
Subjects
aneurysms
Arteries
atherosclerosis
Biomechanical Phenomena
Biophysics
feedback
fibrosis
Homeostasis
hypertension
mechanotransduction
Signal Transduction
atherosclerosis
feedback
fibrosis
hypertension
mechanotransduction
aneurysms
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Summary:Cells of the vascular wall are exquisitely sensitive to changes in their mechanical environment. In healthy vessels, mechanical forces regulate signaling and gene expression to direct the remodeling needed for the vessel wall to maintain optimal function. Major diseases of arteries involve maladaptive remodeling with compromised or lost homeostatic mechanisms. Whereas homeostasis invokes negative feedback loops at multiple scales to mediate mechanobiological stability, disease progression often occurs via positive feedback that generates mechanobiological instabilities. In this review, we focus on the cell biology, wall mechanics, and regulatory pathways associated with arterial health and how changes in these processes lead to disease. We discuss how positive feedback loops arise via biomechanical and biochemical means. We conclude that inflammation plays a central role in overriding homeostatic pathways and suggest future directions for addressing therapeutic needs.
ISSN:1523-9829
1545-4274
DOI:10.1146/annurev-bioeng-092419-060810