Force measurement platform
provides window to study
cardiovascular disease
Cardiovascular disease is the number one
cause of death in the United States. When the
largest artery in the body, known as the aorta,
is affected by disease, it can split or dilate,
resulting in an aneurysm that can be fatal.
Virginia Tech and University of Pittsburgh
School of Medicine researchers have developed
a method to study the role of biomechanical
forces and their disruption in diseased pathol-
ogies using relevant platforms that provide a
window to study disease manifestation and
progression. This platform, called nanonet
force microscopy (NFM), is the first of its
kind to measure single cell fiber forces, both
under passive conditions and in the presence
of disease conditions.
The findings have been published in “Forces”
issue of the journal Molecular Biology of the
Cell, in the article “Nanonet Force Micros-
copy for Measuring Forces in Single Smooth
Muscle Cells of the Human Aorta.”
Amrinder Nain, associate professor of me-
chanical engineering in the College of En-
gineering at Virginia Tech, pioneered NFM
to utilize extracellular mimicking fibers in a
controlled and repeatable manner. Together
with Julie Phillippi, an assistant professor in
the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at
the University of Pittsburgh, they interrogate
what the cells experience in the body by mea-
suring individual cellular forces with a high
level of precision.
Smooth muscle cells present in the walls of
blood vessels undergo periodic expansion and
contraction. The complex force signatures
arising from this involve the interplay between
the innate contractility of the cells and the
forces exerted upon the cell by fibrous extra-