background: the interaction between the blood and the vessel wall is of great clinical interest in studying cardiovascular diseases, the major causes of death in developed countries. objective: to understand the effects of incorporating fluid-structure interaction into the simulation of blood flow through an anatomically realistic model of abdominal aorta and renal arteries reconstructed from c...

Aging is a key risk factor associated with the onset of cardiovascular disease. Notably, vascular aging and cardiovascular disease are both associated with endothelial dysfunction, or a marked decrease in production and bioavailability the vasodilator of nitric oxide (NO). As a result of decreased nitric oxide availability, aging vessels often exhibit endothelial cell senescence and increased o...

The mechanical environment is an important parameter for the homeostatic function of chondrocytes [1]. Numerous studies have considered the effect of shear stress on mature normal [2] or arthritic [3] chondrocytes in vitro and in the joint tissues, like articular cartilage [4,5] or meniscal fibro-cartilage [6,7]. Cartilage is a highly hydrated tissue that experiences movement of fluid when comp...

The membrane skeleton of mature erythrocyte is formed during erythroid differentiation. Fluid shear stress is one of the main factors that promote embryonic hematopoiesis, however, its effects on erythroid differentiation and cytoskeleton remodeling are unclear. Erythrocyte tropomodulin of 41 kDa (E-Tmod41) caps the pointed end of actin filament (F-actin) and is critical for the formation of he...

Peripheral arteriogenesis is distinctly enhanced by increased fluid shear stress. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate in the rat brain whether increased fluid shear stress can also stimulate cerebral arteriogenesis. To increase fluid shear stress in the cerebral circulation, we developed different shear stress models as the ligature of both common carotid arteries (Double-Ligature mo...

In vitro investigations of the responses of vascular endothelium to fluid shear stress have typically been conducted under conditions where the time-mean shear stress is uniform. In contrast, the in vitro experiments reported here have re-created the large gradients in surface fluid shear stress found near arterial branches in vivo; specifically, we have produced a disturbed-flow region that in...

Human leukocytes retract pseudopods under normal physiologic levels of fluid shear stress even in the absence of any other mediator. To gain more detailed understanding of the mechanisms that regulate this cell behavior, we exposed leukocytes to a steady state laminar shear field in a flow chamber and computed the fluid stresses distribution on the surface of individual cells with and without p...

Hemodynamic forces, such as fluid shear stress, that act on the endothelial lining of the cardiovascular system can modulate the expression of an expanding number of genes crucial for homeostasis and the pathogenesis of vascular disease. A 6-bp core element (5'-GAGACC-3'), defined previously as a shear-stress response element is present in the promoters of many genes, including the PDGF B-chain...

The objective of this study was to test whether a glycosaminoglycan component of the surface glycocalyx layer is a fluid shear stress sensor on endothelial cells (ECs). Because enhanced nitric oxide (NO) production in response to fluid shear stress is a characteristic and physiologically important response of ECs, we evaluated NOx (NO2- and NO3-) production in response to fluid shear stress aft...

The predilection of atherosclerotic lesions for specific sites in the arterial tree is believed to be related t o the wall shear stress, exerted by the blood flow. Measurement of the magnitude of the wall shear stress is difficult and is frequently determined by an extrapolation of the velocity field t o find the wall shear rate and an estimation of the viscosity of the fluid in the neighborhoo...