title: Cellular force signal integration through vector logic gates.
abstract: The multi-signal mechanical environment mammalian cells experience is often unaccounted for in current mechanical stimulation studies. To address this we developed a novel technique to induce dual integrated force inputs, uniaxial stretch and fluid shear stress and present here for the first time a vector logic-gate framework to characterize cellular response as a function of cytoskeletal reorganization. Using this framework we found that under fluid shear stress and uniaxial stretch NIH 3T3 fibroblasts responded by the Stretch OR Shear vector logic-gate and HUVECs responded by the NOT Stretch OR Shear vector logic-gate. We further developed a parsimonious model of cellular response to multiple mechanical stimuli, which provides a unifying model that captured the experimental response of both cell types.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Computational Biology, and Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
authors.forename: Robert L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Steward
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
authors.forename: Cheemeng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Nanoengineering and Microsystems, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Chao-Min
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Computational Biology, and Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. Electronic address: prl@andrew.cmu.edu.
authors.forename: Philip R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: LeDuc
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D003599:Cytoskeleton / Q000502:physiology; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008432:Mathematical Computing; D051379:Mice; D008954:Models, Biological; D009131:Muscle, Smooth, Vascular / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*; D041681:NIH 3T3 Cells; D033081:Shear Strength / Q000502:physiology; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology*; D013314:Stress, Mechanical
keywords: 3T3 fibroblast; Fluid shear stress; HUVEC; Uniaxial stretch; Vector logic gates