The roles of Hippo/YAP signaling pathway in physical therapy

Abstract

Cellular behavior is regulated by mechanical signals within the cellular microenvironment. Additionally, changes of temperature, blood flow, and muscle contraction also affect cellular state and the development of diseases. In clinical practice, physical therapy techniques such as ultrasound, vibration, exercise, cold therapy, and hyperthermia are commonly employed to alleviate pain and treat diseases. However, the molecular mechanism about how these physiotherapy methods stimulate local tissues and control gene expression remains unknow. Fortunately, the discovery of YAP filled this gap, which has been reported has the ability to sense and convert a wide variety of mechanical signals into cell-specific programs for transcription, thereby offering a fresh perspective on the mechanisms by which physiotherapy treat different diseases. This review examines the involvement of Hippo/YAP signaling pathway in various diseases and its role in different physical therapy approaches on diseases. Furthermore, we explore the potential therapeutic implications of the Hippo/YAP signaling pathway and address the limitations and controversies surrounding its application in physiotherapy.

Editorial: Decoding muscle adaptation through skeletal muscle negative data: understanding the signaling factors involved

“…Skeletal muscle adapts to exercise by improving metabolism and structure, leading to elevated performance. The identification of multiple signaling pathways that contribute to muscle adaptation including, but not limited to, JAK2/STAT3 ( Yao et al, 2024 ), TGFβ-Smad2/3-ATF4 ( Vanhoutte et al, 2024 ), Hippo/YAP ( Pan et al, 2024 ), Ca (2+)-NFATC1 ( Zhou et al, 2024a ), PROKR1-CREB-NR4A2 ( Mok et al, 2024 ), mitochondria cross talk ( Reisman et al, 2024 ), mitochondria biogenesis and function ( Mesquita et al, 2021 ; Marzetti et al, 2024 ), redox levels ( Zhou et al, 2024b ), and autophagy ( Parousis et al, 2018 ), and also individual mediators like GADD42a ( Marcotte et al, 2023 ), Trim63 ( da Mata et al, 2024 ), mTORC1 ( DHulst et al, 2022 ; McIntosh et al, 2023 ), YAP ( Brooks et al, 2018 ) and AMPK ( Kido et al, 2023 ; Roberts et al, 2024 ) have provided important insight into our understanding of muscle plasticity. However, signaling proteins or pathways that do not change with exercise are rarely reported and often interpreted as unimportant and therefore are not published.…”