“…The mechanisms that determine polarity, including that of Rac1, in response to shear stress is a longstanding question in the field and is an intense area of study. Recent work modeling polarized Rac1 activation in ECs predicts that an endothelial cell in a confluent monolayer would experience compression at the upstream edge of the cell and tension at the downstream edge when exposed to flow (Allen et al, 2011). Therefore, mechanosensitive Iden et al, 2006;Tyler et al, 2010).…”