Effect of Shear Stress on Permeability of Vascular Endothelial Monolayer Cocultured with Smooth Muscle Cells

Abstract

Effect of fluid shear stress on permeability of endothelial monolayer was investigated using an endothelial cell (EC)-smooth muscle cell (SMC) cocultured model (CM). Permeability of ECs to bovine serum albumin was measured after exposure to shear stress of 1.5 Pa for 48 hours. Morphology and VE-cadherin expression of ECs in CM was almost same as of ECs cultured alone (monocultured model, MM). Under static condition, EC permeability was 5.1 ± 3.0 × 10 −6 cm/sec (mean ± SD) in MM and 6.5 ± 3.4 × 10 −6 cm/sec in CM. After exposure to shear stress, EC permeability in CM (2.2 ± 1.9 × 10 −6 cm/sec, p < 0.05) significantly decreased compared with the static model. However, EC permeability in MM (3.9±3.2×10 −6 cm/sec) did not significantly change compared with static cultured condition. These results suggested that cellular interactions between ECs and SMCs have important influences on EC permeability.

Computational modeling of coupled blood-wall mass transport of LDL: effects of local wall shear stress

“…SI is one for a circle and approaches zero for a line. Suciu (32), Chiu et al (4), and Sakamoto et al (27) used cell cultures to observe the cell alignment of endothelial cells as a response to shear stress. As shown in Fig.…”

“…The effects of shear stress on endothelial cells have been investigated in various studies. Although there is no study that directly investigates the relationship between shear stress and the fraction of leaky junctions, there have been studies on the effect of shear stress on cell shape (4,17,27), proliferation rate (12, 41), and hydraulic conductivity and permeability (27,28). Levesque et al (17) observed a stenosed dog aorta and correlated the cell shape with levels of shear stress.…”

“…Levesque et al (17) observed a stenosed dog aorta and correlated the cell shape with levels of shear stress. Suciu (32), Chiu et al (4), and Sakamoto et al (27) used cell cultures to observe the cell alignment of endothelial cells in response to shear stress. These experimental findings are used in this study to obtain a single correlation between shear stress and cell shape.…”

Patient-specific three-dimensional simulation of LDL accumulation in a human left coronary artery in its healthy and atherosclerotic states

“…exposed to low steady or highly oscillatory shear stress are roundly shaped and show a high-proliferation rate, leading to the formation of leaky junctions. When exposed to high steady shear stress, endothelial cells are elongated in the flow direction with a lower rate of mitosis and, hence, show a smaller number of leaky junctions compared with ones exposed to low steady or highly oscillatory shear stress (11,12,33,47,51). As a result, endothelial shear stress influences LDL transport into the artery wall by promoting or demoting the formation of leaky junctions, i.e., the primary LDL transport pathway.…”

“…Locally elevated concentrations of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) are considered to be the initiator of atherosclerotic plaque formation (37,46,48). Therefore, transport of LDL into arterial walls has been the subject of various experimental (8,11,35,39,47,48) and computational investigations (2,29,43,50,52,53,55,56,59).Computational LDL transport models, as recently reviewed by Khakpour and Vafai (28), are categorized into three types: wall-free models, homogenous wall models, and multilayer wall models. In the simple wall-free models, fluid dynamics and LDL transport are calculated solely in the artery lumen.…”