Mechanobiology 2022
This collection examines diverse mechanical descriptions and interactions integral to cell biology. Spanning spatial scales from protein complexes to multicellular collectives, the papers presented here provide new insights into the forces governing developmental biology, neuroscience, immunology, and molecular biology. Beyond tension-generating and load-bearing structures of the actin cytoskeleton, this collection extends our consideration of mechanobiology to encompass surface tension of protein complexes, sensing and regulation of cell volume, and the properties of basement membranes as unique biological and physical interfaces. Readers interested in kinematics, force propagation, material physics, and mechanotransduction of forces into biochemical signaling pathways will learn how these are integral to diverse processes in vascular biology, hemidesmosomes, and autophagy among others.
The JCB editorial team hopes readers enjoy this selection and we welcome your feedback on Twitter at @JCellBiol. You can find more articles related to mechanobiology from JCB here, and sign up to receive notifications about future special collections here.
Image © 2020 Kopf et al.
