Hamza Atcha, Amit Jairaman, Elizabeth L Evans, Medha M Pathak, Michael D Cahalan, Wendy F Liu
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California Irvine, Irvine, USA.
The Edwards Lifesciences Center for Advanced Cardiovascular Technology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, USA.
Curr Opin Solid State Mater Sci. 2021 Dec;25(6). doi: 10.1016/j.cossms.2021.100951. Epub 2021 Sep 15.
The immune system performs critical functions to defend against invading pathogens and maintain tissue homeostasis. Immune cells reside within or are recruited to a host of mechanically active tissues throughout the body and, as a result, are exposed to varying types and degrees of mechanical stimuli. Despite their abundance in such tissues, the role of mechanical stimuli in influencing immune cell function and the molecular mechanisms responsible for mechanics-mediated changes are still poorly understood. The recent emergence of mechanically-gated ion channels, particularly Piezo1, has provided an exciting avenue of research within the fields of mechanobiology and immunology. Numerous studies have identified roles for mechanically-gated ion channels in mechanotransduction within various different cell types, with a few recent studies in immune cells. These initial studies provide strong evidence that mechanically-gated ion channels play pivotal roles in regulating the immune system. In this review, we discuss characteristics of ion channel mediated force transduction, review the current techniques used to quantify and visualize ion channel activity in response to mechanical stimuli, and finally we provide an overview of recent studies examining the role of mechanically-gated ion channels in modulating immune cell function.
免疫系统执行关键功能以抵御入侵病原体并维持组织内稳态。免疫细胞驻留在全身众多具有机械活性的组织中或被招募至这些组织，因此会暴露于不同类型和程度的机械刺激下。尽管免疫细胞在这些组织中数量众多，但机械刺激在影响免疫细胞功能方面的作用以及负责力学介导变化的分子机制仍知之甚少。机械门控离子通道，特别是Piezo1的近期出现，为力学生物学和免疫学领域提供了一个令人兴奋的研究途径。众多研究已确定机械门控离子通道在各种不同细胞类型的机械转导中的作用，最近也有一些针对免疫细胞的研究。这些初步研究提供了有力证据，表明机械门控离子通道在调节免疫系统中起关键作用。在本综述中，我们讨论离子通道介导的力转导的特征，回顾用于量化和可视化响应机械刺激的离子通道活性的当前技术，最后我们概述近期研究，这些研究探讨了机械门控离子通道在调节免疫细胞功能中的作用。
