Study On Cytoskeleton System Respons To Mechanical Changes

To investigate the changes in cell morphology and cytoskeleton after gravity changes for human cells, HUVEC and NIH3T3 cell lines were treated using2D-RWVS. The samples were rotated around the horizontal axis to simulate microgravity, and rotated around the vertical axis to simulate overloading.To analyze morphological changes after mechanical treated, SEM and AFM were used first. The results indicated that, compared with untreated group, the diameter of the cells reduced and the height of the cells increased in simulated microgravity group, while the diameter the cells increased and the height of the cells decreased in overloading group. Using immunofluorescence technique,microtubules, microfilaments and intermediate filaments were analyzed further,the results showed these three kinds of cytoskeleton changed with the same tendency. And the fractal dimension analysis results using software image J showed that the complexity of these cytoskeletons decreased in simulated microgravity group, while increased in overloading group. And the protein expression of α-tublin, β-actin and Vimentin analyzed using Western Blot technique were also showed that the protein expression decreased in simulated microgravity groups, while increased in overloading groups.Based on the above results we can draw a conclusion that gravity changes can influence cell morphology and the expression of cytoskeleton proteins. These changes may further induce gravity transduction changes and influence cell physiology and heredity. The molecular mechanism needs further study.