About this Research Topic

Background

Mechanobiology is a growing field at the interface of biology, engineering, and physics to study how cells and tissues communicate with physical signals in combination with traditional biochemical signals. Examples of known physical signals that affect various aspects of cellular behavior include sensing of surrounding matrix rigidity (from rigid bone to soft brain tissue), and shear stress (from blood flow in vessels). Increasing evidence shows that mechanical signals are as ubiquitous as their biochemical counterparts.

Cancer cells are known to be able to grow on soft surfaces where non-cancer cells cannot proliferate well. It is a hallmark of carcinogenesis and forms the basis of the soft agar colony formation assay which has been used for decades to examine if patient biopsy samples are cancerous or not. Studies have shown that many cancer cell lines have indeed lost their rigidity sensing ability and restoring the rigidity sensing capacity will trigger apoptosis (or anoikis) of cancer cells.

This suggests that targeting key differential factors in cancer mechanosensing pathways could achieve selective cancer cell killing without harming healthy cells. Dark patches remain to be elucidated along this path in terms of the molecular mechanisms that lead to the mechanosensing behavior of cancer cells, and how diverse cancer driver genes induce the relatively conserved changes in mechanosensitivity. A community effort is required to address these questions. This Research Topic aims to gather Original Research, Brief Research Reports, Reviews, Mini-Reviews, Methods, Data Reports, and Perspectives that focus on various aspects of tumor mechanobiology, including, but not limited to, the following subtopics:

• Mechanobiology in various types of cancer studies;
• Molecular mechanisms of tumor mechanobiology;
• Methods and experimental technology for mechanobiology;
• Mechanobiology and intracellular trafficking;
• Potential treatment development related to mechanobiology.

More information on article types accepted by the journal can be found here.

Descriptive studies consisting solely of bioinformatic investigation of publicly available genomic/transcriptomic/proteomic data do not fall within the scope of the section unless they are expanded and provide significant biological or mechanistic insight into the process being studied.

Topic Editor, Michael Sheetz, is the founder and CEO of Mechanobiologics, Inc. Topic Editors, Michael Sheetz and Mingxi Yao, hold patents in the field. The other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regard to the Research Topic subject.

Keywords: mechanotumor biology, mechanosensitivity, cancer cells, mechanosensing pathways, intracellular trafficking

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