From Mechanosensing to Signaling and the Cell Response: The Ion Channel Force

The cellular microenvironment is full of mechanical challenges ranging from shear and compressive stress to tension and substrate stiffness. Ion channels can sense all these mechanical stimuli directly through innate force sensing or through lipids and filaments, including cytoskeleton and extracellular matrix. Mechanical forces are therefore rapidly transformed into electrochemical signals through the activity of ion channels which in turn defines cellular physiology and fate. Mechanosensitive channels are essential in controlling a variety of cellular processes such as transcription, differentiation, adhesion and migration. They have multifaceted roles in physiopathology as they are involved in hearing, touch, neurotransmission, development, hemodynamics, inflammation, neurodegeneration, cardiovascular disease and oncogenesis.

Several technological advances combining the expertise of several research areas (biology, physics and engineering) allowed a better understanding of mechanotransduction. This Research Topic aims to gather recent advances unraveling the molecular mechanisms of activation and regulation of mechanosensitive ion channels as well as their effects on intracellular signaling and cellular responses.

Original Research articles, Reviews and Methods papers are welcome in this Research Topic focusing on, but not limited to, the following subtopics:

• Activation and regulation of mechanosensitive ion channels
• Mechanosensitive ion channel modeling and structural analysis
• The role of ion channels in hemodynamics
• Mechanobiology of ion channels in cancer and metastasis
• Mechanoregulatory mechanisms during development
• Role of mechanical stress and ion channel activation in neurodegeneration