Mechanická citlivost buněk

Mechanosensitivity of cells-marginalized mode of signalization by Jan Krůšek.

Environmental sensing by living cells comprises also mechanical forces and deformations. Mechanotransduction is process of translation of such mechanical stimuli into biological signals as a change of the membrane potential or stimulation of particular intracellular signal cascades. In prokaryotes the best characterized mechanical sense is osmosensitivity, while in eukaryotes it is mechanotransduction in hair cells of the inner ear. Growing number of evidence shows its importance also in physiology of muscle, heart and blood vessels and in pathology of tumors. Virtually all cells need mechanical stimuli and without them they cannot survive and properly differentiate. But despite substantial progress we are still lacking detailed information about identity of the primary eukaryote mechanosensors.