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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 37 records · Page 2

Stream and ocean hydrodynamics mediate partial migration strategies in an amphidromous Hawaiian goby

Abstract Partial migration strategies, in which some individuals migrate but others do not, are widely observed in populations of migratory animals. Such patterns could arise via variation in migratory behaviors made by individual animals, via genetic variation in migratory predisposition, or simply by variation in migration opportunities mediated by environmental conditions. Here we use spatiotemporal variation in partial migration across populations of an amphidromous Hawaiian goby to test whether stream or ocean conditions favor completing its life cycle entirely within freshwater streams rather than undergoing an oceanic larval migration. Across 35 watersheds, microchemical analysis of otoliths revealed that most adult Awaous stamineus were freshwater residents (62% of n = 316 in 2009, 83% of n = 274 in 2011), but we found considerable variation among watersheds. We then tested the hypothesis that the prevalence of freshwater residency increases with the stability of stream flows and decreases with the availability of dispersal pathways arising from ocean hydrodynamics. We found that streams with low variation of daily discharge were home to a higher incidence of freshwater residents in each survey year. The magnitude of the shift in freshwater residency between survey years was positively associated with predicted interannual variability in the success of larval settlement in streams on each island based on passive drift in ocean currents. We built on these findings by developing a theoretical model of goby life history to further evaluate whether mediation of migration outcomes by stream and ocean hydrodynamics could be sufficient to explain the range of partial migration frequency observed across populations. The model illustrates that the proportion of larvae entering the ocean and differential survival of freshwater‐resident versus ocean‐going larvae are plausible mechanisms for range‐wide shifts in migration strategies. Thus, we propose that hydrologic variation in both ocean and stream environments contributes to spatiotemporal variation in the prevalence of migration phenotypes in A. stamineus . Our empirical and theoretical results suggest that the capacity for partial migration could enhance the persistence of metapopulations of diadromous fish when confronted with variable ocean and stream conditions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Heterothermic Migration Strategies in Flying Vertebrates

Migration is a widespread and highly variable trait among animals. Population-level patterns arise from individual-level decisions, including physiological and energetic constraints. Many aspects of migration are influenced by behaviors and strategies employed during periods of stopover, where migrants may encounter variable or unpredictable conditions. Thermoregulation can be a major cost for homeotherms which largely encounter ambient temperatures below the lower critical temperature during migration, especially during the rest phase of the daily cycle. In this review we describe the empirical evidence, theoretical models, and potential implications of bats and birds that use heterothermy to reduce thermoregulatory costs during migration. Torpor-assisted migration is a strategy described for migrating temperate insectivorous bats, whereby torpor can be used during periods of inactivity to drastically reduce thermoregulatory costs and increase net refueling rate, leading to shorter stopover duration, reduced fuel load requirement, and potential consequences for broad-scale movement patterns and survival. Hummingbirds can adopt a similar strategy, but most birds are not capable of torpor. However, there is an increasing recognition of the use of more shallow heterothermic strategies by diverse bird species during migration, with similarly important implications for migration energetics. A growing body of published literature and preliminary data from ongoing research indicate that heterothermic migration strategies in birds may be more common than traditionally appreciated. We further take a broad evolutionary perspective to consider heterothermy as an alternative to migration in some species, or as a conceptual link to consider alternatives to seasonal resource limitations. There is a growing body of evidence related to heterothermic migration strategies in bats and birds, but many important questions related to the broader implications of this strategy remain.

bats↗

Free-zone electrophoresis of animal cells. 1: Experiments on cell-cell interactions

The electrophoretically migrating zones wasa monitored. The absence of fluid flows in the direction of migration permits direct measurement of electrophoretic velocities of any material. Sedimentation is orthogonal to electrokinetic motion and the effects of particle-particle interaction on electrophoretic mobility is studied by free zone electrophoresis. Fixed erythrocytes at high concentrations, mixtures of fixed erythrocytes from different animal species, and mixtures of cultured human cells were studied in low ionic strength buffers. The electrophoretic velocity of fixed erythrocytes was not altered by increasing cell concentration or by the mixing of erythrocytes from different species. When zones containing cultured human glial cells and neuroblastoma cells are permitted to interact during electrophoresis, altered migration patterns occur. It is found that cell-cell interactions depends upon cell type.

Todd, P. W.↗

DYNC1H1 regulates NSCLC cell growth and metastasis by IFN-γ-JAK-STAT signaling and is associated with an aberrant immune response

Highlights: • DYNC1H1 is upregulated and its high expression predicted poor outcomes in NSCLC. • Loss of function of DYNC1H1 inhibits cell growth and metastasis of NSCLC cells in vitro. • DYNC1H1 knockdown inhibited metastasis of NSCLC cells in vivo. • DYNC1H1 loss of function suppresses IFN-γ-JAK-STAT signaling pathway in NSCLC. • DYNC1H1 expression is correlated with aberrant immune response in NSCLC indicated by analysis of TCGA immune data. It is urgent to identify new biomarkers and therapeutic targets to ameliorate the clinical prognosis of patients with lung cancer. The functional significance and molecular mechanism of dynein cytoplasmic 1 heavy chain 1 (DYNC1H1) in nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) progression is still elusive. In our current study, publicly available data and Western blotting experiments confirmed that DYNC1H1 expression was upregulated in lung cancer samples compared with noncancerous samples. Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) results indicated that high DYNC1H1 expression in lung cancer tissues was significantly associated with clinical tumor stage and distal metastasis; moreover, its high expression was negatively correlated with prognosis. Functional experiments demonstrated that DYNC1H1 loss of function caused a significant decrease in cell viability and cell proliferative ability, inhibition of the cell cycle, and promotion of both migration potential and invasion potential in vitro. Animal experiments by tail vein injection of lung cancer cells showed that DYNC1H1 knockdown significantly decreased lung cancer metastasis. Mechanistically, the results from a human protein array showed changes in the IFN-γ-JAK-STAT signaling pathway, and analysis of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) immune data demonstrated that disturbance of the immune microenvironment might be involved in the impaired growth and metastatic ability mediated by DYNC1H1 loss in NSCLC. DYNC1H1 might serve as a promising biological marker of prognosis and a potential clinical therapeutic target for patients with NSCLC.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Moving With Parasites: Relationships Between Animal Movement and Infectious Disease Across Systems and Scales

Animal movement patterns are important for ecological processes such as population dynamics and infectious disease transmission. Because animals move in response to environmental cues like temperature and precipitation, changes to the environment – whether they are seasonal, interannual, or long-term – can change these processes, leading to changes in population sizes or infectious disease prevalence across space and time. My work uses a combination of simulation modeling and data analysis at multiple spatial and temporal scales to understand the environment-movement-disease connection in diverse animal taxa and environments. In this seminar, I will highlight the diverse ways that the environment can influence infectious disease dynamics via changes to animal movement patterns, including through a global study of migration in ungulate populations, a study of American White Ibis adapting to urban environments in South Florida, and examples of avian influenza prevalence in wild waterfowl. Together, these examples highlight that understanding environment-movement interactions can help predict how infectious disease dynamics might change in the future, as changes to climate, land use, and habitats alter animal movement patterns.

Animal movement↗

Microbiome Comparison and Pathogen Identification for Three Migrating Passerines Captured During Spring Season in Jordan Using 16S rRNA Sequencing

Jordan is located on an important spot along the Mediterranean and Black Sea Flyway. Hundreds of migratory bird species have been identified stopping over in Jordan during spring and autumn migratory seasons. Compared to mammals and economically important birds, the microbiomes of wild bird species are severely understudied. Gut microbial composition is a valuable source of information that reflects food preferences, foraging behavior, and the risk of pathogen transmission to humans and other animals. In this study, we assessed the microbiome composition of three species of migrating passerines (willow warblers, lesser whitethroats, and common reed warblers) captured during the spring migration stopover in Jordan in 2023. A total of 59 fecal samples were selected evenly from the three species and subjected to 16S sequencing and microbiome analysis. Our objectives were to determine the diversity of bacteria in these three species, assess the amount of intra- and inter-specific variation, and detect pathogenic genera and species that could pose health risks to humans, domestic animals, and wildlife. Bacteria mainly belonged to the phyla Proteobacteria (62%), Actinobacteriota (18%), Firmicutes (13%), Cyanobacteria (5%), and Bacteroidota (1%). The results reveal that lesser whitethroats had the greatest variation in bacterial genus richness, Shannon diversity, and microbial composition compared to willow warblers and common reed warblers. The three bird species harbored several pathogenic genera and species, including Campylobacter, Enterococcus, Escherichia-Shigella, Mycoplasma, Rickettsia, Clostridium perfringens, and Vibrio cholerae. We suggest further investigation to understand the relationship between migratory behavior and their gut microbiome. We advocate for the use of advanced molecular techniques to characterize the pathogens found in migratory birds that might have public and environmental health impacts in addition to economic loss.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Integrating biomechanics in evolutionary studies, with examples from the amphidromous goby model system

The functional capacities of animals are a primary factor determining survival in nature. In this context, understanding the biomechanical performance of animals can provide insight into diverse aspects of their biology, ranging from ecological distributions across habitat gradients to the evolutionary diversification of lineages. To survive and reproduce in the face of environmental pressures, animals must perform a wide range of tasks, some of which entail tradeoffs between competing demands. Moreover, the demands encountered by animals can change through ontogeny as they grow, sexually mature or migrate across environmental gradients. To understand how mechanisms that underlie functional performance contribute to survival and diversification across challenging and variable habitats, we have pursued diverse studies of the comparative biomechanics of amphidromous goby fishes across functional requirements ranging from prey capture and fast-start swimming to adhesion and waterfall climbing. The pan-tropical distribution of these fishes has provided opportunities for repeated testing of evolutionary hypotheses. By synthesizing data from the lab and field, across approaches spanning high-speed kinematics, selection trials, suction pressure recordings, mechanical property testing, muscle fiber-type measurements and physical modeling of bioinspired designs, we have clarified how multiple axes of variation in biomechanical performance associate with the ecological and evolutionary diversity of these fishes. Here our studies of how these fishes meet both common and extreme functional demands add new, complementary perspectives to frameworks developed from other systems, and illustrate how integrating knowledge of the mechanical underpinnings of diverse aspects of performance can give critical insights into ecological and evolutionary questions.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Large Game Movement between Los Alamos National Laboratory and Pueblo de San Ildefonso

Movement by wildlife is a fundamental process that allows for the distribution of animal populations. The level and scale of movement varies by species, time of year, and whether long-distance migration plays a role in a species’ life history. Many species do not have regular migration patterns, but still have movement patterns essential to their survival. Changes in the environment such as wildfires, drought, and anthropogenic activities have the potential to influence the movements of animals.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Bird Migration Under Climate Change - A Mechanistic Approach Using Remote Sensing

The broad-scale reductions and shifts that may be expected under climate change in the availability and quality of stopover habitat for long-distance migrants is an area of increasing concern for conservation biologists. Researchers generally have taken two broad approaches to the modeling of migration behaviour to understand the impact of these changes on migratory bird populations. These include models based on causal processes and their response to environmental stimulation, "mechanistic models", or models that primarily are based on observed animal distribution patterns and the correlation of these patterns with environmental variables, i.e. "data driven" models. Investigators have applied the latter technique to forecast changes in migration patterns with changes in the environment, for example, as might be expected under climate change, by forecasting how the underlying environmental data layers upon which the relationships are built will change over time. The learned geostatstical correlations are then applied to the modified data layers.. However, this is problematic. Even if the projections of how the underlying data layers will change are correct, it is not evident that the statistical relationships will remain the same, i.e. that the animal organism may not adapt its' behaviour to the changing conditions. Mechanistic models that explicitly take into account the physical, biological, and behaviour responses of an organism as well as the underlying changes in the landscape offer an alternative to address these shortcomings. The availability of satellite remote sensing observations at multiple spatial and temporal scales, coupled with advances in climate modeling and information technologies enable the application of the mechanistic models to predict how continental bird migration patterns may change in response to environmental change. In earlier work, we simulated the impact of effects of wetland loss and inter-annual variability on the fitness of migratory shorebirds in the central fly ways of North America. We demonstrated the phenotypic plasticity of a migratory population of Pectoral sandpipers consisting of an ensemble of 10,000 individual birds in response to changes in stopover locations using an individual based migration model driven by remotely sensed land surface data, climate data and biological field data. With the advent of new computing capabilities enabled hy recent GPU-GP computing paradigms and commodity hardware, it now is possible to simulate both larger ensemble populations and to incorporate more realistic mechanistic factors into migration models. Here, we take our first steps use these tools to study the impact of long-term drought variability on shorebird survival.

Smith, James A.↗

Multi-Dimensional Calibration of Impact Dynamic Models

NASA Langley, under the Subsonic Rotary Wing Program, recently completed two helicopter tests in support of an in-house effort to study crashworthiness. As part of this effort, work is on-going to investigate model calibration approaches and calibration metrics for impact dynamics models. Model calibration of impact dynamics problems has traditionally assessed model adequacy by comparing time histories from analytical predictions to test at only a few critical locations. Although this approach provides for a direct measure of the model predictive capability, overall system behavior is only qualitatively assessed using full vehicle animations. In order to understand the spatial and temporal relationships of impact loads as they migrate throughout the structure, a more quantitative approach is needed. In this work impact shapes derived from simulated time history data are used to recommend sensor placement and to assess model adequacy using time based metrics and orthogonality multi-dimensional metrics. An approach for model calibration is presented that includes metric definitions, uncertainty bounds, parameter sensitivity, and numerical optimization to estimate parameters to reconcile test with analysis. The process is illustrated using simulated experiment data.

Horta, Lucas G.↗

Illuminated nights accelerate the migration‐linked phenology in a passerine finch redheaded bunting

Abstract The excessive use of artificial light is altering the natural light–dark cycles, consequently impacting animal behavior and physiology. Dim light at night (dLAN) can disrupt migratory patterns, alter hormone levels, and impact breeding success in birds. The present research aims to address the effects of dLAN on the metabolic and reproductive tissues of migratory redheaded bunting ( Emberiza bruniceps ). For this, buntings under short winter‐like days (10L:14D) were exposed to either dark nights ( D = 0.00014 W/m 2 ) or dLAN ( D = 0.058 W/m 2 ), and their locomotor activity, body mass, fat score, food intake, testicular volume, and plasma testosterone levels were measured. The histological architecture of the muscle, intestine, testis, and liver tissues was assessed. Birds exposed to dark nights confined their activity to the daytime only, whereas the dLAN group showed nocturnal activity and initiated Zugunruhe (nighttime restlessness). The body mass, food intake, fat score, and testicular volume significantly increased under dLAN. Histomorphometry revealed increased muscle width, epithelium thickness, and lumen diameter in the testis, proximal and distal muscularis thickness in the intestine, hepatic lipid droplet size, and decreased proximal villi length and intestinal diameter under dLAN. Further, plasma testosterone levels also increased under dLAN. Our results suggest that dLAN can induce migration‐linked phenotypes even under non‐stimulatory short days leading to mistimed seasonal activities.

Tiwari, Jyoti [Department of Zoology University of↗

Analysis of Salinity Intrusion in the San Francisco Bay-Delta using a GA- Optimized Neural Net, and Application of the Model to Prediction in the Elkhorn Slough Habitat

The San Francisco Bay Delta is a large hydrodynamic complex that incorporates the Sacramento and San Joaquin Estuaries, the Burman Marsh, and the San Francisco Bay proper. Competition exists for the use of this extensive water system both from the fisheries industry, the agricultural industry, and from the marine and estuarine animal species within the Delta. As tidal fluctuations occur, more saline water pushes upstream allowing fish to migrate beyond the Burman Marsh for breeding and habitat occupation. However, the agriculture industry does not want extensive salinity intrusion to impact water quality for human and plant consumption. The balance is regulated by pumping stations located alone the estuaries and reservoirs whereby flushing of fresh water keeps the saline intrusion at bay. The pumping schedule is driven by data collected at various locations within the Bay Delta and by numerical models that predict the salinity intrusion as part of a larger model of the system. The Interagency Ecological Program (IEP) for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Estuary collects, monitors, and archives the data, and the Department of Water Resources provides a numerical model simulation (DSM2) from which predictions are made that drive the pumping schedule. A problem with this procedure is that the numerical simulation takes roughly 16 hours to complete a C:~ prediction. We have created a neural net, optimized with a genetic algorithm, that takes as input the archived data from multiple stations and predicts stage, salinity, and flow at the Carquinez Straits (at the downstream end of the Burman Marsh). This model seems to be robust in its predictions and operates much faster than the current numerical DSM2 model. Because the system is strongly tidal driven, we used both Principal Component Analysis and Fast Fourier Transforms to discover dominant features within the IEP data. We then filtered out the dominant tidal forcing to discover non-primary tidal effects, and used this to enhance the neural network by mapping input-output relationships in a more efficient manner. Furthermore, the neural network implicitly incorporates both the hydrodynamic and water quality models into a single predictive system. Although our model has not yet been enhanced to demonstrate improve pumping schedules, it has the possibility to support better decision-making procedures that may then be implemented by State agencies if desired. Our intention is now to use this model in the smaller Elkhorn Slough complex near Monterey Bay where no such hydrodynamic model currently exists. At the Elkhorn Slough, we are fusing the neural net model of tidally-driven flow with in situ flow data and airborne and satellite remote sensation data. These further constrain the behavior of the model in predicting the longer-term health and future of this vital estuary.

Thompson, David E.↗

Design and test of an object-oriented GIS to map plant species in the Southern Rockies

Elevational and latitudinal shifts occur in the flora of the Rocky Mountains due to long term climate change. In order to specify which species are successfully migrating with these changes, and which are not, an object-oriented, image-based geographic information system (GIS) is being created to animate evolving ecological regimes of temperature and precipitation. Research at the Earth Data Analysis Center (EDAC) is developing a landscape model that includes the spatial, spectral and temporal domains. It is designed to visualize migratory changes in the Rocky Mountain flora, and to specify future community compositions. The object-oriented database will eventually tag each of the nearly 6000 species with a unique hue, intensity, and saturation value, so their movements can be individually traced. An associated GIS includes environmental parameters that control the distribution of each species in the landscape, and satellite imagery is used to help visualize the terrain. Polygons for the GIS are delineated as landform facets that are static in ecological time. The model manages these facets as a triangular irregular net (TIN), and their analysis assesses the gradual progression of species as they migrate through the TIN. Using an appropriate climate change model, the goal will be to stop the modeling process to assess both the rate and direction of species' change and to specify the changing community composition of each landscape facet.

Morain, Stanley A.↗

The Monkeys and Parrots of Gold Rush-era California

As immigrant gold miners migrated en masse to San Francisco and northern California during the Gold Rush-era (ca. 1849–1855), they experienced new animals. Stopping in ports throughout Central and South America, these argonauts saw, felt, smelled, heard, and occasionally consumed, mammals, birds, reptiles, and many more creatures, which were wholly exotic to those species found at home. Two types of animals that the Gold Rush populace encountered during this era include parrots and monkeys. Although found throughout tropical environments in areas far distant from northern California, these animals became quickly imported to San Francisco during the early 1850s. A wild, turbulent Gold Rush-era helped facilitate the importation of these exotic animal types, both for comfort and entertainment, as they helped provide a source of companionship for miners unaccustomed to the shock of 1850s northern California.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Theoretical overview and modeling of the sodium and potassium atmospheres of mercury

A general theoretical overview for the sources, sinks, gas-surface interactions, and transport dynamics of sodium and potassium in the exospheric atmsophere of Mercury is given. Information for these four factors, which control the spatial distribution of these two alkali-group gases about the planet, is incorporated in numerical models. The spatial nature and relative importance of the initial source atom atmosphere and the ambient (ballistic hopping) atom atmosphere are then examined and are shown to be controlled and coupled to a great extent by the extremely large and variable solar radiation acceleration experienced by sodium and potassium as they resonantly scatter solar photons. The lateral (antisunward) transport rate of thermally accommodated sodium and potassium ambient atoms is shown to be driven by the solar radiation acceleration and, over a significant portion of Mercury's orbit about the Sun, is sufficiently rapid to be competitive with the short photoionization lifetimes for these atoms when they are located on the summit surface near or within about 30 deg of the terminator. The lateral transport rate is characterized by a migration time determined by model calculations for an ensemble of atoms initially starting at a point source on the surface (i.e., a numerical spacetime dependent Green's function). Four animations for the spacetime evolution of the sodium (or potassium) atmosphere produced by a point source on the surface are presented on a videotape format. For extended surface sources for sodium and potassium, the local column density is determined by competition between the photoionization lifetimes and the lateral transport times of atoms originating from different surface source locations. Sodium surface source fluxes (referenced to Mercury at perihelion) that are required on the sunlit hemisphere to reproduce the typically observed several megarayleighs of D2 emission-line brightness and the inferred column densities of 1-2 x 10(exp 11) atoms per sq cm range from approximately 2-5 x 10(exp 7) atoms/sq cm/sec. The sodium model is applied to study observational data that document an anticorrelation in the average sodium column density and solar radiation acceleration. Lateral transport driven by the solar radiation acceleration is shown to produce this behavior for combinations of different sources and surface accomodation coefficients. The best fit model fits to the observational data require a significant degree of thermal accommodation of the ambient sodium atoms to the surface and a source rate that decreases as an inverse power of 1.5 to 2 in heliocentric distance.

Smyth, William H.↗

Florida Atlantic Coast Telemetry (FACT) Array: A Working Partnership

The Florida Atlantic Coast Telemetry (FACT) Array is a collaborative partnership of researchers from 24 different organizations using passive acoustic telemetry to document site fidelity, habitat preferences, seasonal migration patterns, and reproductive strategies of valuable sportfish, sharks, and marine turtles. FACT partners have found that by bundling resources, they can leverage a smaller investment to track highly mobile animals beyond a study area typically restrained in scale by funds and manpower. FACT is guided by several simple rules: use of the same type of equipment, locate receivers in areas that are beneficial to all researchers when feasible, maintain strong scientific ethics by recognizing that detection data on any receiver belongs to the tag owner, do not use other members detection data without permission and acknowledge FACT in publications. Partners have access to a network of 480 receivers deployed along a continuum of habitats from freshwater rivers to offshore reefs and covers 1100 km of coastline from the Dry Tortugas, Florida to South Carolina and extends to the Bahamas. Presently, 49 species, (25 covered by Fisheries Management Plans and five covered by the Endangered Species Act) have been tagged with 2736 tags in which 1767 tags are still active.

Scheidt, Douglas↗

Injectable platelet rich fibrin facilitates hair follicle regeneration by promoting human dermal papilla cell proliferation, migration, and trichogenic inductivity

Hair follicle regeneration has been successful in mice but failed in human being for years. Dermal papilla cells, a specialized mesenchymal stem cell derived from dermal papilla within hair follicles, is considered the key cells for hair follicle regeneration function as both regeneration initiator and regulator. Injectable platelet rich fibrin (i-PRF), a novel biomaterial rich in a variety of growth factors and three-dimensional scaffolds, has shown promising effects on tissue regeneration. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the application of i-PRF in human hair follicle regeneration by examining the biological effects of i-PRF on human dermal papilla cells (hDPCs). Biomaterial compatibility, cell viability, proliferation, migration, alkaline phosphatase activity and trichogenic inductivity were assessed after exposing hDPCs to different concentrations of i-PRF extracts. In addition, we investigated the ultrastructure of i-PRF with all cell components filtered. The results revealed that i-PRF possessing excellent biocompatibility and could significantly promote hDPCs proliferation, migration, and trichogenic inductivity. Furthermore, the concentration of i-PRF is able to remarkably influence hDPCs behavior in a dose-dependent pattern. Different concentrations exhibited differential effects on hDPCs behavior. In general, lower concentration promotes cell proliferation better than higher concentration, while higher concentration promotes cell function better reversely. Best concentration for hDPCs in vitro expending is 1% concentration. 20% concentration is optimal for hair follicle regeneration. In summary, our findings concluded that i-PRF facilitates hair follicle regeneration by promoting human dermal papilla cell proliferation, migration, and trichogenic inductivity.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Mechanics of vimentin intermediate filaments

It is increasingly evident that the cytoskeleton of living cells plays important roles in mechanical and biological functions of the cells. Here we focus on the contribution of intermediate filaments (IFs) to the mechanical behaviors of living cells. Vimentin, a major structural component of IFs in many cell types, is shown to play an important role in vital mechanical and biological functions such as cell contractility, migration, stiffness, stiffening, and proliferation.

Review↗