Fig. 1.

Schematic of the flow-induced inclination hypothesis of the endothelial cell (EC)-cell junction in the direction of flow. Liu et al. (25) measured an increase in the slope of the trailing-edge membrane (θ₁) and decrease in the slope of the leading-edge membrane (θ₂) at the top of the junction after initiation of flow (gray vs. versus black: flow-unadapted condition). However, their study was limited to surface topology. Here, it was hypothesized that ECs also adapt to steady flow by inclination of their cell-cell junction (θ_3, or the complementary angle θ₄) to reduce the propagation of tension from cell to cell.