Mass transfer is significant factor in vascular intima signaling ‐ its relevance to AMPK

Abstract

Previous literature has suggested that mechanical transduction, via shear stress, is the dominant contribution in vascular intima signaling. Cellular processes such as gene transcription, DNA replication in the disturbed flow region, and a sudden spike of ATP generation distal to plaque formation have been correlated to mechanotransduction. Here, we computationally model the significance of mass transfer relative to shear gradients on chemical species under the same experimental conditions prescribed by the work by Korenaga et al. (1997), Chiu et al. (1998), and Choi et al. (2007). The results demonstrate that mass transfer modifications of chemical species were in excellent agreement with the published observations. In addition, our experimental results showed the Ca2+ dependence for eliciting AMPK (AMP activated protein kinase) signal pathway. These results imply that the role of mechanical transduction in similar signaling may be overstated and mass transfer considerations should be carefully examined when studying triggering methods in signaling mechanisms.Grant Funding Source: CBR (Center for Bioengineering Research), UCR