Figure 1.

Mechanical and pharmacological modulation of Piezo1 channels. Mechanosensitive Piezo1 channels expressed on the plasma membrane are gated by various mechanical stimuli (black arrows). Channel activation allows a Ca²⁺ influx (blue spheres) into the cytoplasm which mediates countless cell responses. Piezo1 may be pharmacologically activated by agonists (blue arrows) or inhibited by channel pore blockers, competitive antagonists, and peptides, which distort the membrane mechanical properties (red inhibitory arrows). Structural data for Piezo1 channel were taken from Protein Data Bank (accession code: 3JAC) and created with BioRender.com.