Primícia mundial de l'abstract de l'article

With every beat of the heart, inflation of the lung, or peristalsis of the gut, cell types of diverse function are subjected to substantial stretch. We report here that in response to transient stretch the cytoskeleton fluidizes in such a way as to define a universal response class. This finding implicates mechanisms mediated not only by specific signaling intermediates, as is usually presumed, but also by nonspecific actions of a slowly evolving network of physical forces. These results support the idea that the cell interior is at once a crowded chemical space and a fragile soft material in which the effects of biochemistry, molecular crowding, and physical forces are complex and inseparable, yet conspire nonetheless to yield remarkably simple phenomenological laws. These laws appear to be both universal and primitive, and thus comprise a striking intersection between the worlds of cell biology and soft matter physics.