Mechanical Force Stimulated Signal Transduction On Rat Brain Microvascular Endothelial Cells

Signal transduction in the cells plays an important role in physiological activities of the cells. Through signal transduction pathways, cell can sense extracellular stimuli and react with physiological and biochemical changes, which in turn leads to the morphological and functional modulations of the cell. This is the pathological basis underlying many diseases. Vascular endothelial cells line the inner surface of the vascular and constantly sense the hemodynarnic stimuli, which makes mechanical forces (mainly shear stress) one of the most important factors in the initiation and progression of vascular disease. The aim of this research is to study the reaction of brain microvascular endothelial cells to mechanical stimuli and find out the signal transduction pathways involved. The major methods employed are immunohistochemical staining and whole-cell patch clamp technique. To determine the effects of fluid shear stress on the c-fos protein translation in the nucleus of microvascular endothelial cell monolayers, we designed a flow chamber to investigate the changes after a period of shear stress applied. C-fos protein was detected by immuohistochemical staining and then processed by computer imagine analysis system. The result indicated that c-fos protein expressed after applying shear stress. Under the shear stress of 0. 14x 105N/cm2, there was a significant decrease of the grey level of the nucleus of the cells (P