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. 2012 Apr 26;3:90. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2012.00090

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Copyright © He and Bongrand.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial License, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited.

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FIGURE 1. Mechanisms for mechanotransduction. Five potential mechanisms for mechanotransduction are depicted. (A) A local force (red arrow) may generate a protrusion or a tether, resulting in the recruitment of curvature-sensitive molecules (green disks; Suetsugu et al., 2006). (B) Increased membrane tension (red arrows) may result in the opening of mechanosensitive channels (Chalfie, 2009). (C) A separating force (red arrow) exerted on attached cells may result in the concentration of adhesion receptors into a smaller area (Tözeren et al., 1989). (D) A force applied to a protein may result in a conformational change and exposure of docking sites shown as green rectangles (Del Rio et al., 2009). (E) A pulling or pushing force (red arrow) may alter the position of a protein with respect to the plasma membrane, resulting in the exposure of docking sites shown as pink rectangles (Xu et al., 2008).