ABSTRACT
In view of fundamental challenges to the current life and medical researches, this paper analyzes the mechano-chemical coupling behaviors of living organisms at molecular, sub-cellular, cellular and tissue levels, attempting to explain the quantitative relationships in those mechano-chemical coupling behaviors at different scales. These quantitative relationships show that the structures of living organisms at various scales are closely related to their tensional homeostasis, i. e. , the structural changes will inevitably lead to the changes of tensional homeostasis; Conversely, the changes of the tensional homeostasis will inevitably lead to structural changes. The tensional homeostasis in living organisms stems from contractile force in actin cytoskeleton generated by the action of myosin II at molecular level, and the tensional homeostasis at higher structural levels is realized with the help of hierarchical structures of the living organisms. Therefore, the mechano-chemical coupling mechanisms and their corresponding quantitative relationships inspire scientists to develop a new way of understanding and dealing with diseases, called as mechanomedicine. Finally, the paper discusses possible ways / road maps of mechanomedicine to understand and treat diseases, in order to provide diagnostic and therapeutic ideas for this new medical paradigm.
ABSTRACT
As one of the major branches in biomechanics, cellular and molecular biomechanics have made much progress in mechano-biological and mechano-chemical coupling in the past decades. Cells sense various in vivo mechanical stimuli, which initiate downstream signaling via mechanosensitive proteins to balance external forces. It is required to understand what mechanical features of distinct cells are and how external forces are transduced to biochemical signals. Multi-scale integration from cellular, subcellular, to molecular level in a cell promotes the understanding of mechanosensation, mechanotransmission, mechanotransduction, and mechanoepigenetics. In this review, the progress update in cellular and molecular biomechanics is provided and relevant scientific issues, methodological approaches, and potential applications are discussed.
ABSTRACT
As the frontier of biomechanics research, cellular and molecular biomechanics is an interdisciplinary research field at the cutting edge of applied mechanics and life science and biology, which brings us many challenging problems to the current theories and techniques in biomechanics due to its importance and complexity. This paper will give a brief review on several of these challenging problems and make some comments on the papers included in this special issue, such as the mechanical properties and modeling methods of cell, the modeling of mechanochemical couplig and multiscale modeling methods in cell mechanics, so as to stimulate the common interest within not only the biomechanics but also the applied mechanics community.