Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2023;1402:31-44. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-25588-5_2.
Investigating the mechanobiology of chondrocytes is challenging due to the complex micromechanical environment of cartilage tissue. The innate zonal differences and poroelastic properties of the tissue combined with its heterogeneous composition create spatial- and temporal-dependent cell behavior, which further complicates the investigation. Despite the numerous challenges, understanding the mechanobiology of chondrocytes is crucial for developing strategies for treating cartilage related diseases as chondrocytes are the only cell type within the tissue. The effort to understand chondrocyte behavior under various mechanical stimuli has been ongoing over the last 50 years. Early studies examined global biosynthetic behavior under unidirectional mechanical stimulus. With the technological development in high-speed confocal imaging techniques, recent studies have focused on investigating real-time individual and collective cell responses to multiple / combined modes of mechanical stimuli. Such efforts have led to tremendous advances in understanding the influence of local physical stimuli on chondrocyte behavior. In addition, we highlight the wide variety of experimental techniques, spanning from static to impact loading, and analysis techniques, from biochemical assays to machine learning, that have been utilized to study chondrocyte behavior. Finally, we review the progression of hypotheses about chondrocyte mechanobiology and provide a perspective on the future outlook of chondrocyte mechanobiology.
研究软骨细胞的机械生物学具有挑战性，这是由于软骨组织的复杂微机械环境所致。组织的固有分区差异和多孔弹性特性以及其异质组成造成了时空相关的细胞行为，这进一步增加了研究的复杂性。尽管存在许多挑战，但了解软骨细胞的机械生物学对于开发治疗与软骨相关疾病的策略至关重要，因为软骨细胞是组织中唯一的细胞类型。在过去的 50 年中，人们一直在努力理解各种机械刺激下的软骨细胞行为。早期的研究检查了单向机械刺激下的整体生物合成行为。随着高速共聚焦成像技术的发展，最近的研究集中于研究实时单个和集体细胞对多种/组合机械刺激模式的反应。这些努力极大地促进了对局部物理刺激对软骨细胞行为的影响的理解。此外，我们还强调了广泛的实验技术，从静态到冲击加载，以及分析技术，从生化分析到机器学习，这些技术已被用于研究软骨细胞行为。最后，我们回顾了关于软骨细胞机械生物学的假说的进展，并对软骨细胞机械生物学的未来展望提供了观点。
