Mechanotransduction in Vascular Development and Disease

There is growing interest in understanding the dynamic roles of physical forces in vascular development, homeostasis, and disease. While it is well established that all cells are responsive to their external environment, and the cells of the vascular system are constantly exposed to hemodynamic forces, we are still uncovering how these external cues influence vascular cell signaling to direct cell identity, cell phenotype, vascular organization, and vessel function. Work is emerging that defines how vascular cells interpret and respond to these external forces to reveal how the biomechanical environment influences cell signaling and behavior. This collection on vascular mechanotransduction will address how cells respond to external physical forces during vessel development and organization, later in vessel homeostasis, and in the context of cardiovascular disease.

Although physical forces are key factors in vascular cell signaling, the Editors recognize a lack of communication across research fields. It is our hope that this collection on vascular mechanotransduction will offer a forum for the public distribution of ideas and research progress across a wide scope of researchers- including physiologists, physicists, cell biologists, clinicians, and engineers. The goal of this collection is to not only describe and interpret past findings in the form of reviews, but to also present recent scientific advances in our understanding of how forces affect the vascular system; across multiple vascular cells types, multiple vascular networks, during development, in vascular homeostasis, remodeling, and in disease.

For this Research Topic collection in Frontiers in Physiology, we aim to attract submissions on the diverse topic of vascular hemodynamics and mechanotransduction. Submissions may cover various aspects of vascular mechanobiology, ranging from the characterization of hemodynamic microenvironments to specialized responses related to vessel specification, vascular morphogenesis, and network remodeling, physiological tissue functions in vascular homeostasis and cardiovascular diseases. We are soliciting both primary literature and review articles. If authors are interested in submitting primary research, we recommend brief, technically sound articles that lend themselves to substantive discussion. If contributors are interested in submitting a review, we recommend those focusing on current topics, progression from development-to-physiology-to-disease, underappreciated concepts, or longstanding discrepancies.