Cell stiffness, contractile stress and the role of extracellular matrix
- Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe Street, Room E-7616, Baltimore, MD 21205 (United States)
- Division of Biostatistics, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA 17033 (United States)
- CIBER, Enfermedades Respiratorias, 07110 Bunyola (Spain)
- Division of Molecular and Integrative Physiological Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115 (United States)
Here we have assessed the effects of extracellular matrix (ECM) composition and rigidity on mechanical properties of the human airway smooth muscle (ASM) cell. Cell stiffness and contractile stress showed appreciable changes from the most relaxed state to the most contracted state: we refer to the maximal range of these changes as the cell contractile scope. The contractile scope was least when the cell was adherent upon collagen V, followed by collagen IV, laminin, and collagen I, and greatest for fibronectin. Regardless of ECM composition, upon adherence to increasingly rigid substrates, the ASM cell positively regulated expression of antioxidant genes in the glutathione pathway and heme oxygenase, and disruption of a redox-sensitive transcription factor, nuclear erythroid 2 p45-related factor (Nrf2), culminated in greater contractile scope. These findings provide biophysical evidence that ECM differentially modulates muscle contractility and, for the first time, demonstrate a link between muscle contractility and Nrf2-directed responses.
- OSTI ID:
- 22199687
- Journal Information:
- Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, Vol. 382, Issue 4; Other Information: Copyright (c) 2009 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, All rights reserved.; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0006-291X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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