Effect of fluid shear stress on the transdifferentiation of human umbilical vein endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells

Abstract

At the present study we examined the effect of fluid shear stress on two different cell types. The cells studied were the Human Umbilical Vein endothelial cells and Smooth Muscle cells. For that purpose, a device which was simulating the arterial circulation was used. Shear stress is the hemodynamic force of blood. We show that this mechanical stress can efficiently parallelize the cellular morphology and induce changes at a gene transcription level. Specifically, we proove that shear stress is responsible for the upregualation of specific endothelial markers whereas can mediate the downregulation of smooth muscle cells markers in both cell types examined.