Mechanobiology is a rapidly advancing field at the intersection of biology, physics, and engineering that reveals how mechanical forces shape cellular behavior, tissue architecture, and disease progression. By elucidating how cells sense and transduce mechanical cues, mechanobiology has fundamentally advanced our understanding of processes ranging from migration and differentiation to immune responses and tissue remodeling. These advances have driven the development of innovative biophysical tools and engineered biomaterials that enable precise modulation of the cellular microenvironment. Translating mechanobiological principles into clinical practice is giving rise to mechanomedicine, a previously unrecognized paradigm that integrates mechanical forces as key modulators of health and disease. This review highlights how mechanobiology informs therapeutic strategies across diverse domains, including cancer immunotherapy, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disorders, and regenerative medicine. By bridging fundamental discoveries with translational applications, this review positions mechanobiology as a cornerstone of next-generation medical innovation, translating mechanistic insights into impactful clinical applications.

>Advanced microsystems in traumatic brain injury research:Traumatic brain injury (TBI) results from a mechanical insult to the brain,leading to neuronal and axonal damage and subsequently causing a secondary injury.Within minutes of TBI,a neuroinflammatory response is triggered,driven by intricate molecular and cellular inflammatory processes.

Microglial cells, as the primary defense line in the central nervous system, play a crucial role in responding to various mechanical signals that can trigger their activation. Despite extensive research on the impact of chemical signaling on brain cells, the understanding of mechanical signaling in microglia remains limited. To bridge this gap, we subjected microglial cells to a singular mechanical stretch and compared their responses with those induced by lipopolysaccharide treatment, a well-established chemical activator. Here we show that stretching microglial cells leads to their activation, highlighting their significant mechanosensitivity. Stretched microglial cells exhibited distinct features, including elevated levels of Iba1 protein, a denser actin cytoskeleton, and increased persistence in migration. Unlike LPS-treated microglial cells, the secretory profile of chemokines and cytokines remained largely unchanged in response to stretching, except for TNF-α. Intriguingly, a single stretch injury resulted in more compacted chromatin and DNA damage, suggesting potential long-term genomic instabilities in stretched microglia. Using compartmentalized microfluidic chambers with neuronal networks, we observed that stretched microglial cells exhibited enhanced phagocytic and synaptic stripping activities. These findings collectively suggest that stretching events can unlock the immune potential of microglial cells, contributing to the maintenance of brain tissue homeostasis following mechanical injury.

Increasing evidence suggests that mechanics play a critical role in regulating brain function at different scales. Downstream integration of mechanical inputs into biochemical signals and genomic pathways causes observable and measurable effects on brain cell fate and can also lead to important pathological consequences. Despite recent advances, the mechanical forces that influence neuronal processes remain largely unexplored, and how endogenous mechanical forces are detected and transduced by brain cells into biochemical and genetic programs have received less attention. In this review, we described the composition of brain tissues and their pronounced microstructural heterogeneity. We discuss the individual role of neuronal and glial cell mechanics in brain homeostasis and diseases. We highlight how changes in the composition and mechanical properties of the extracellular matrix can modulate brain cell functions and describe key mechanisms of the mechanosensing process. We then consider the contribution of mechanobiology in the emergence of brain diseases by providing a critical review on traumatic brain injury, neurodegenerative diseases, and neuroblastoma. We show that a better understanding of the mechanobiology of brain tissues will require to manipulate the physico-chemical parameters of the cell microenvironment, and to develop three-dimensional models that can recapitulate the complexity and spatial diversity of brain tissues in a reproducible and predictable manner. Collectively, these emerging insights shed new light on the importance of mechanobiology and its implication in brain and nerve diseases.

The wide range of epithelial cell shapes reveals the complexity and diversity of the intracellular mechanisms that serve to construct their morphology and regulate their functions. Using mechanosensitive steps, epithelial cells can sense a variety of different mechanochemical stimuli and adapt their behavior by reshaping their morphology. These changes of cell shape rely on a structural reorganization in space and time that generates modifications of the tensional state and activates biochemical cascades. Recent studies have started to unveil how the cell shape maintenance is involved in mechanical homeostatic tasks to sustain epithelial tissue folding, identity, and self-renewal. Here, we review relevant works that integrated mechanobiology to elucidate some of the core principles of how cell shape may be conveyed into spatial information to guide collective processes such as epithelial morphogenesis. Among many other parameters, we show that the regulation of the cell shape can be understood as the result of the interplay between two counteracting mechanisms: actomyosin contractility and intercellular adhesions, and that both do not act independently but are functionally integrated to operate on molecular, cellular, and tissue scales. We highlight the role of cadherin-based adhesions in force-sensing and mechanotransduction, and we report recent developments that exploit physics of liquid crystals to connect cell shape changes to orientational order in cell aggregates. Finally, we emphasize that the further intermingling of different disciplines to develop new mechanobiology assays will lead the way toward a unified picture of the contribution of cell shape to the pathophysiological behavior of epithelial tissues.

Deformation, compression, or stretching of brain tissues cause diffuse axonal injury (DAI) and induce structural and functional alterations of astrocytes, the most abundant cell type in the brain. To gain further insight into the role of mechanically activated astrocytes on neuronal networks, this study was designed to investigate whether cytokines released by mechanically activated astrocytes can affect the growth and synaptic connections of cortical neuronal networks. Astrocytes were cultivated on elastic membranes and subjected to repetitive mechanical insults, whereas well-defined protein micropatterns were used to form standardized neuronal networks. GFAP staining showed that astrocytes were mechanically activated after two cycles of stretch and mesoscale discovery assays indicated that injured astrocytes released four major cytokines. To understand the role of these cytokines, neuronal networks were cultured with the supernatant of healthy or mechanically activated astrocytes, and the individual contribution of the proinflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) was studied. We found that the supernatant of two-cycle stretched astrocytes decreased presynaptic terminals and indicated that TNF-α must be considered a key player of the synaptic loss. Furthermore, our results indicate that cytokines released by injured astrocytes significantly modulate the balance between TNFR1 and TNFR2 receptors by enhancing R2 receptors. We demonstrated that TNF-α is not involved in this process, suggesting a predominant role of other secreted cytokines. Together, these results contribute to a better understanding of the consequences of repetitive astrocyte deformations and highlight the role of inflammatory signaling pathways in synaptic plasticity and modulation of TNFR1 and TNFR2 receptors.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Despite its high prevalence and extensive efforts to develop neuroprotective therapies, effective treatments for TBI are still limited. Among important neuronal damages, TBI induces structural and functional alterations of astrocytes, the most abundant cell type in the brain. Injured astrocytes respond in diverse mechanisms that result in reactive astrogliosis and are involved in the physiopathological mechanisms of TBI in an extensive and sophisticated manner. The establishment of effective neuroprotective treatments for TBI requires to better understand the complex biochemical interactions between activated astrocytes and neurons that contribute to the secondary injury. To address this challenge, we studied in vitro the role of mechanically injured astrocytes on the growth and synaptic connections of cortical neuronal networks of controlled architectures grown on well-defined protein micropatterns. Astrocytes were cultivated on elastic membranes and mechanically activated by stretching cycles. The culture media of healthy or activated astrocytes was then introduced on neuronal networks. We analyzed the neuronal viability, the neurite growth and the synaptic density of neuronal networks to understand the role of the inflammatory molecules secreted by mechanically activated astrocytes. Furthermore, we cultivated neuronal networks during 13 days with different doses of TNF-α in order to decipher its individual contribution among the other cytokines. Here we show that the ratio of tubulin to synapsin area was significantly higher in neuronal networks treated with either 4 or 2 doses of TNF-α, suggesting that TNF-α can promote the tubulin polymerization process. Assuming that TNF-α can bind to either TNFR1 or TNFR2 receptors, which lead respectively to the cell survival or the cell apoptosis, we studied the modulation of the both TNF-α receptors in response to the medium of mechanically activated astrocytes and different doses of TNF-α. Our findings indicate that the amount of both receptors increases with the maturation of the network. In addition, we observed a significant modulation of the amount of TNFR1 and TNFR2 in response to the media of injured astrocytes that leads to a large imbalance between both receptors, suggesting an important role for TNFα-signaling in the physiopathological mechanisms of TBI.

Cells and tissues can sense and react to the modifications of the physico-chemical properties of the extracellular environment (ECM) through integrin-based adhesion sites and adapt their physiological response in a process called mechanotransduction. Due to their critical localization at the cell-ECM interface, transmembrane integrins are mediators of bidirectional signaling, playing a key role in “outside-in” and “inside-out” signal transduction. After presenting the basic conceptual fundamentals related to cell mechanobiology, we review the current state-of-the-art technologies that facilitate the understanding of mechanotransduction signaling pathways. Finally, we highlight innovative technological developments that can help to advance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying nuclear mechanotransduction.

Event Abstract Back to Event The beneficial and harmful effects of glial cells on neuronal connectivity in in vitro models of traumatic brain injury. Anthony Procès1*, Joséphine Lantoine1, Sylvain Gabriele1 and Laurence Ris1 1 University of Mons, Belgium Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is currently one of the leading causes of global cognitive disorder and is mainly caused by falls, traffic accidents and sport contacts. During TBI, inertial forces cause shear stress in neurons and glial cells due to the deformation of brain tissues. Accumulative evidence suggests that neuroinflammation caused by mechanically activated glial cells plays an important role in the physio-pathological processes of TBI but this remains poorly understood. To address this question, we first developed an inertia-driven model using organotypic hippocampal slice cultures (OHSC) providing near-in vivo cell interactions. Results showed a time-dependent diminution of synaptic connections due to the mechanical activation of microglia. Furthermore, our findings show that dendritic arborisation rapidly collapsed but progressively recovered over time alongside the microglial activation. Then, we used cortical neuronal networks of controlled architectures [1] to decipher the role of mechanically-activated astrocytes on neuronal network connectivity. We show that the culture medium of activated astrocytes modulates significantly the neuronal expression of TNF-α receptors. Indeed, we observed a decrease of TNFR1 expression, while TNFR2 expression was increased after 5 days. Moreover, ELISA experiments showed a large increase in the concentration of TNF-α in harvested stretched astrocyte culture medium compared to control astrocyte culture. Altogether, our results decipher positive or negative modulation of neuronal connectivity by mechanically activated glial cells. References [1] J. Lantoine et al. Matrix stiffness modulates formation and activity of neuronal networks of controlled architectures. Biomaterials 89, 14-24 (2016) Keywords: mechanobiology, Traumatic Brain Injury, glia, neuronal networks, Organotypic hippocampal slice cultures, neuromodulatory chemokines Conference: 13th National Congress of the Belgian Society for Neuroscience , Brussels, Belgium, 24 May - 24 May, 2019. Presentation Type: Poster presentation Topic: Cellular/Molecular Neuroscience Citation: Procès A, Lantoine J, Gabriele S and Ris L (2019). The beneficial and harmful effects of glial cells on neuronal connectivity in in vitro models of traumatic brain injury.. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: 13th National Congress of the Belgian Society for Neuroscience . doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2019.96.00092 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 01 Apr 2019; Published Online: 27 Sep 2019. * Correspondence: Mr. Anthony Procès, University of Mons, Mons, Hainaut, 7000, Belgium, Anthony.PROCES@umons.ac.be Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Anthony Procès Joséphine Lantoine Sylvain Gabriele Laurence Ris Google Anthony Procès Joséphine Lantoine Sylvain Gabriele Laurence Ris Google Scholar Anthony Procès Joséphine Lantoine Sylvain Gabriele Laurence Ris PubMed Anthony Procès Joséphine Lantoine Sylvain Gabriele Laurence Ris Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.