FIGURE 2.

Cartoon depicting three beneficial tools for exploring the tethering model of mechanosensitive channel. (A) Indentation on the polydimethylsiloxane substrate. Blue is the indentation probe, yellow is the recording electrode, and red arrowhead is the tethering site. The dashed line points to the neurite stretching. The red arrow indicates the direction of the robust neurite stretching. The gating mechanism of ASIC3 is demonstrated by this tool. (Lin et al., 2016; Lin et al., 2009) (B) Indentation on the elastic micropillar array. The single bending pillar is labeled in red. The red arrow shows the bending direction and indicates that the force is precise and on a small scale. The pillar array demonstrates that PIEZO1 and TRPV4 can be activated by stimuli from the movement of the cell–substrate contact site. (Servin-Vences et al., 2017; Sianati et al., 2020) (C) Micropipette-guided ultrasound stimulation generates the pulling force (black arrow) and ultrasound compression force (red wave). Yellow is a microscope lens used for calcium imaging. Micropipette-guided ultrasound activates ASIC1a by cytoskeleton or extracellular matrix tethering Lim et al. (2021), (Chu et al., 2021).