Mechanically Optimized Orientation of Intracellular Stress Fibers Under Cyclic Stretch

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroshi Yamada ◽  
Tohru Takemasa ◽  
Takami Yamaguchi

Abstract To elucidate the orientation of stress fibers in a cultured endothelial cell under cyclic stretch, we hypothesized that a stress fiber aligns so as to minimize the summation of its length change under cyclic stretch, and that there is a limit in the sensitivity of cellular response to the mechanical stimulus. Results from numerical simulations based on the continuum mechanics describe the experimental observations under uniaxial stretch well. They give us an insight to the biological phenomenon of the orientation in stress fibers under biaxial stretch from the viewpoint of mechanical engineering.

Author(s):  
Wenjing Huang ◽  
Tsubasa S. Matsui ◽  
Takumi Saito ◽  
Masahiro Kuragano ◽  
Masayuki Takahashi ◽  
...  

Cells adapt to applied cyclic stretch (CS) to circumvent chronic activation of proinflammatory signaling. Currently, the molecular mechanism of the selective disassembly of actin stress fibers (SFs) in the stretch direction, which occurs at the early stage of the cellular response to CS, remains controversial. Here we suggest that the mechanosensitive behavior of myosin II, a major cross-linker of SFs, primarily contributes to the directional disassembly of the actomyosin complex SFs in bovine vascular smooth muscle cells and human U2OS osteosarcoma cells. First, we identified that CS with a shortening phase that exceeds in speed the inherent contractile rate of individual SFs leads to the disassembly. To understand the biological basis, we investigated the effect of expressing myosin regulatory light chain mutants and found that SFs with less actomyosin activities disassemble more promptly upon CS. We consequently created a minimal mathematical model that recapitulates the salient features of the direction-selective and threshold-triggered disassembly of SFs to show that disassembly or, more specifically, unbundling of the actomyosin bundle SFs is enhanced with sufficiently fast cell shortening. We further demonstrated that similar disassembly of SFs is inducible in the presence of an active LIM-kinase-1 mutant that deactivates cofilin, suggesting that cofilin is dispensable as opposed to a previously proposed mechanism.


1999 ◽  
Vol 112 (19) ◽  
pp. 3205-3213 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Masiero ◽  
K.A. Lapidos ◽  
I. Ambudkar ◽  
E.C. Kohn

We have shown that nonvoltage-operated Ca(2+) entry regulates human umbilical vein endothelial cell adhesion, migration, and proliferation on type IV collagen. We now demonstrate a requirement for Ca(2+) influx for activation of the RhoA pathway during endothelial cell spreading on type IV collagen. Reorganization of actin into stress fibers was complete when the cells where fully spread at 90 minutes. No actin organization into stress fibers was seen in endothelial cells plated on type I collagen, indicating a permissive effect of type IV collagen. CAI, a blocker of nonvoltage-operated Ca(2+) channels, prevented development of stress fiber formation in endothelial cells on type IV collagen. This permissive effect was augmented by Ca(2+) influx, as stimulated by 0. 5 microM thapsigargin or 0.1 microM ionomycin, yielding faster development of actin stress fibers. Ca(2+) influx and actin rearrangement in response to thapsigargin and ionomycin were abrogated by CAI. Activated, membrane-bound RhoA is a substrate for C3 exoenzyme which ADP-ribosylates and inactivates RhoA, preventing actin stress fiber formation. Pretreatment of endothelial cells with C3 exoenzyme prevented basal and thapsigargin-augmented stress fiber formation. While regulation of Ca(2+) influx did not alter RhoA translocation, it reduced in vitro ADP-ribosylation of RhoA (P(2)<0. 05), suggesting Ca(2+) influx is needed for RhoA activation during spreading on type IV collagen; no Ca(2+) regulated change in RhoA was seen in HUVECs spreading on type I collagen matrix. Blockade of Ca(2+) influx of HUVEC spread on type IV collagen also reduced tyrosine phosphorylation of p190Rho-GAP and blocked thapsigargin-enhanced binding of p190Rho-GAP to focal adhesion kinase. Thus, Ca(2+) influx is necessary for RhoA activation and for linkage of the RhoA/stress fiber cascade to the focal adhesion/focal adhesion kinase pathway during human umbilical vein endothelial cell spreading on type IV collagen.


2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroshi Yamada ◽  
Tohru Takemasa ◽  
Takami Yamaguchi

Abstract We hypothesized an avoidance of deformation and a limit of sensitivity of cell response to the mechanical stimulus for the orientation of stress fibers in cultured cells on a silicone membrane which was subjected to a uniaxial cyclic stretch. We compared the theoretical prediction with the experimental result of stress fibers in the human umbilical vein endothelial cells under various ranges of uniaxial cyclic stretch (Takemasa et al. 1998). The results showed that the proposed hypothesis predicted the orientation of stress fibers under various ranges of cyclic stretch well.


2008 ◽  
Vol 130 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhensong Wei ◽  
Vikram S. Deshpande ◽  
Robert M. McMeeking ◽  
Anthony G. Evans

Numerical simulations that incorporate a biochemomechanical model for the contractility of the cytoskeleton have been used to rationalize the following observations. Uniaxial cyclic stretching of cells causes stress fibers to align perpendicular to the stretch direction, with degree of alignment dependent on the stretch strain magnitude, as well as the frequency and the transverse contraction of the substrate. Conversely, equibiaxial cyclic stretching induces a uniform distribution of stress fiber orientations. Demonstrations that the model successfully predicts the alignments experimentally found are followed by a parameter study to investigate the influence of a range of key variables including the stretch magnitude, the intrinsic rate sensitivity of the stress fibers, the straining frequency, and the transverse contraction of the substrate. The primary predictions are as follows. The rate sensitivity has a strong influence on alignment, equivalent to that attained by a few percent of additional stretch. The fiber alignment increases with increasing cycling frequency. Transverse contraction of the substrate causes the stress fibers to organize into two symmetrical orientations with respect to the primary stretch direction.


1989 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 331-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
V P Shirinsky ◽  
A S Antonov ◽  
K G Birukov ◽  
A V Sobolevsky ◽  
Y A Romanov ◽  
...  

Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (EC) were grown on elastic silicone membranes subjected to cyclic stretch, simulating arterial wall motion. Stretching conditions (20% amplitude, 52 cycle/min) stimulated stress fiber formation and their orientation transversely to the strain direction. Cell bodies aligned along the same axis after the actin cytoskeleton. EC orientation response was inhibited by the adenylate cyclase activator, forskolin (10(-5) M), which caused stress fiber disassembly and the redistribution of F-actin to the cortical cytoplasm. Preoriented EC depleted of stress fibers by forskolin treatment retained their aligned state. Thus, stress fibers are essential for the process of EC orientation induced by repeated strain, but not for the maintenance of EC orientation. The monolayer formed by EC grown to confluence in conditions of intermittent strain consisted of uniform elongated cells and was resistant to deformation. In contrast, the monolayer assembled in stationary conditions was less compliant and exposed local denudations on initiation of stretching. When stretched in the presence of 10(-5) M forskolin it rapidly (3-4 h) reestablished integrity but gained a heterogeneous appearance since denuded areas were covered by giant cells. The protective effect of forskolin was because of the stimulation of EC spreading. This feature of forskolin was demonstrated while studying its action on EC spreading and repair of a scratched EC monolayer in conventional culture. Thus mechanical deformation and adenylate cyclase activity may be important factors in the control of endothelium morphology in human arteries.


2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 1846-1859 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura M. Hoffman ◽  
Christopher C. Jensen ◽  
Aashi Chaturvedi ◽  
Masaaki Yoshigi ◽  
Mary C. Beckerle

Reinforcement of actin stress fibers in response to mechanical stimulation depends on a posttranslational mechanism that requires the LIM protein zyxin. The C-terminal LIM region of zyxin directs the force-sensitive accumulation of zyxin on actin stress fibers. The N-terminal region of zyxin promotes actin reinforcement even when Rho kinase is inhibited. The mechanosensitive integrin effector p130Cas binds zyxin but is not required for mitogen-activated protein kinase–dependent zyxin phosphorylation or stress fiber remodeling in cells exposed to uniaxial cyclic stretch. α-Actinin and Ena/VASP proteins bind to the stress fiber reinforcement domain of zyxin. Mutation of their docking sites reveals that zyxin is required for recruitment of both groups of proteins to regions of stress fiber remodeling. Zyxin-null cells reconstituted with zyxin variants that lack either α-actinin or Ena/VASP-binding capacity display compromised response to mechanical stimulation. Our findings define a bipartite mechanism for stretch-induced actin remodeling that involves mechanosensitive targeting of zyxin to actin stress fibers and localized recruitment of actin regulatory machinery.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aritra Chatterjee ◽  
Paturu Kondaiah ◽  
Namrata Gundiah

AbstractStress fibers in the cytoskeleton are essential in maintaining cellular shape, and influence their adhesion and migration. Cyclic uniaxial stretching results in cellular reorientation orthogonal to the applied stretch direction via a strain avoidance reaction; the mechanistic cues in cellular mechanosensitivity to this response are currently underexplored. We show stretch induced stress fiber lengthening, their realignment and increased cortical actin in fibroblasts stretched over varied amplitudes and durations. Higher amounts of actin and alignment of stress fibers were accompanied with an increase in the effective elastic modulus of cells. Microtubules did not contribute to the measured stiffness or reorientation response but were essential to the nuclear reorientation. We modeled stress fiber growth and reorientation dynamics using a nonlinear, orthotropic, fiber-reinforced continuum representation of the cell. The model predicts the observed fibroblast morphology and increased cellular stiffness under uniaxial cyclic stretch. These studies are important in exploring the differences underlying mechanotransduction and cellular contractility under stretch.


Author(s):  
Yunfeng Yang ◽  
Kazuaki Nagayama ◽  
Takeo Matsumoto

Stress fibers (SFs) play essential roles in various cellular functions such as cell movement, shape maintenance and cell division [1]. One of their key features is that they dynamically change their structures in response to mechanical environment to which they are exposed [2]. For example, cultured endothelial cells exposed to cyclic stretch preferentially reorganize their actin stress fibers to the direction in which the strain magnitude of the fibers become minimum [3].


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Roshanzadeh ◽  
Tham Thi Nguyen ◽  
Khoa Dang Nguyen ◽  
Dong-Su Kim ◽  
Bong-Kee Lee ◽  
...  

Abstract Cyclic stretch applied to cells induces the reorganization of stress fibers. However, the correlation between the reorganization of stress fiber subtypes and strain-dependent responses of the cytoplasm and nucleus has remained unclear. Here, we investigated the dynamic involvement of stress fiber subtypes in the orientation and elongation of cyclically stretched epithelial cells. We applied uniaxial cyclic stretches at 5%, 10%, and 15% strains to cells followed by the release of the mechanical stretch. Dorsal, transverse arcs, and peripheral stress fibers were mainly involved in the cytoplasm responses whereas perinuclear cap fibers were associated with the reorientation and elongation of the nucleus. Dorsal stress fibers and transverse arcs rapidly responded within 15 min regardless of the strain magnitude to facilitate the subsequent changes in the orientation and elongation of the cytoplasm. The cyclic stretches induced the additional formation of perinuclear cap fibers and their increased number was almost maintained with a slight decline after 2-h-long stretch release. The slow formation and high stability of perinuclear cap fibers were linked to the slow reorientation kinetics and partial morphology recovery of nucleus in the presence or absence of cyclic stretches. The reorganization of stress fiber subtypes occurred in accordance with the reversible distribution of myosin II. These findings allowed us to propose a model for stretch-induced responses of the cytoplasm and nucleus in epithelial cells based on different mechanoadaptive properties of stress fiber subtypes.


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