Fig. 5.

Effects of shear stress on intracellular Ca²⁺ and volume showing that the cell volume decrease under the shear stress is Ca²⁺ independent. (a) The Ca²⁺ increase in response to a stepwise rise of shear stress from 0.5 to 5.5 dyn/cm². (b) The flow-induced Ca²⁺ uptake is blocked by 100 μM Gd³⁺. Multiple regions in the chamber are measured and plotted in (a) and (b). (c) Cell volume response to an increase in isotonic shear stress from 0.2 to 2.0 dyn/cm². (d) Volume response to shear stress in the presence of 100 μM of Gd³⁺ showing Gd³⁺ does not inhibit the flow induced cell shrinkage. The arrow indicates the change of flow rate. The inserted graphs in (c) and (d) show the average of maximum relative cell volume change obtained from three independent experiments. The error bar indicates the standard deviation.