Preface

Skin, bone and cartilage are the important examples of live tissues that respond to mechanical stimulation and that require it for their metabolic maintenance. The cells in these organs, which are responsible for matrix regeneration and responsive to mechanical stimulation, are, among others, the fibroblasts, the osteocytes (osteoblasts) and the chondrocytes (chondroblasts). All these cells are of the mesenchymal origin and maturate from multipotent mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). It was previously shown than MSCs can maturate to one of these cell types when exposed to appropriate media (osteogenic, chondrogenic, etc.) with the addition of mechanical stimulation with the optimal characteristic mechanical parameters.

In this book the authors address the special characteristics of the responses of these types of cells to mechanical stimulation. The process of the cellular mechanical stimulation, mechanotransduction, is partially similar among these cells, but there are also several very important differences in mechanical parameters and cellular pathways. The current knowledge on the characteristic cellular mechanotransduction pathways is expanding. The authors aimed to concentrate on the description of the more investigated pathways, which are characteristic to each cell type.

The book starts with the chapters on general aspects of cellular biomechanics and description of the experimental equipment that is commonly used for the research of cellular mechanotransduction in vitro in two dimensional cultures, especially when the cells are adherent to plastic surfaces. The characteristic pathways of mechanotransduction in MSCs, osteoblasts and osteocytes, chondrocytes and fibroblasts are described in following chapters and eventually a description of clinical implementation of mechanical stimulation is added with emphasis on distraction osteogenesis, involving osteoblast stimulation, and on the skin stretching techniques based on fibroblasts’ stimulation.

The area of cellular mechanotransduction research is still widely open for further research and discoveries. In this book the authors tried to summarize the current knowledge on mechanotransduction in the MSCs and the three mature cell types, which are responsible for the maintenance of tissues that provide body support, cover and movement.