Hypo- and hyperglycemia impair endothelial cell actin alignment and nitric oxide synthase activation in response to shear stress.

Uncontrolled blood glucose in people with diabetes correlates with endothelial cell dysfunction, which contributes to accelerated atherosclerosis and subsequent myocardial infarction, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease. In vitro, both low and high glucose induce endothelial cell dysfunction; however the effect of altered glucose on endothelial cell fluid flow response has not been studied. This is critical to understanding diabetic cardiovascular disease, since endothelial cell cytoskeletal alignment and nitric oxide release in response to shear stress from flowing blood are atheroprotective.

Glycated collagen and altered glucose increase endothelial cell adhesion strength.

Cell adhesion strength is important to cell survival, proliferation, migration, and mechanotransduction, yet changes in endothelial cell adhesion strength have not yet been examined in diseases such as diabetes with high rates of cardiovascular complications. We therefore investigated porcine aortic endothelial cell adhesion strength on native and glycated collagen-coated substrates and in low, normal, and high glucose culture using a spinning disc apparatus. Adhesion strength increased by 30 dynes/cm(2) in cells on glycated collagen as compared to native collagen.

A simplified implementation of edge detection in MATLAB is faster and more sensitive than fast fourier transform for actin fiber alignment quantification.

Fiber alignment plays a critical role in the structure and function of cells and tissues. While fiber alignment quantification is important to experimental analysis and several different methods for quantifying fiber alignment exist, many studies focus on qualitative rather than quantitative analysis perhaps due to the complexity of current fiber alignment methods. Speed and sensitivity were compared in edge detection and fast Fourier transform (FFT) for measuring actin fiber alignment in cells exposed to shear stress.