Sep 15, 2026 · 14 min · 12 segments
Mechanical forces may help the body coordinate pregnancy and labor. Yunxiao Zhang, Ph.D., of Scripps Research Institute, examines how PIEZO1 and PIEZO2, proteins that open in response to stretch…
Yunxiao ZhangGuest
So mechanical forces is really obvious throughout the pregnancy and the labor process as we easily record all these different mechanical stretches and mechanical forces throughout the process.
And there has been a lot of early studies suggesting that the mechanical forces are playing some regulatory roles at different stages of the whole process.
But directly pinpointing the exact molecular mechanism for how our body senses the mechanical force and what exactly roles the mechanical forces have on the overall reproductive system has been difficult.
as there are so many different signaling mechanisms that can be affected by mechanical stretch, but they also tend to respond to a bunch of other biochemical signaling, making it very hard to isolate the specific effect from the mechanical force alone.
And that's why in my study, I turn into the mechanically activated channel, the piezo channels, which respond to mechanical stretch by simply opening to allow the calcium to enter the cell.
And despite all the extensive studies, we have not found any physiological ligands that can directly activate piezo, so that the piezo activity is almost always associated with mechanical forces.
So mechanical forces is really obvious throughout the pregnancy and the labor process as we easily record all these different mechanical stretches and mechanical forces throughout the process.
And there has been a lot of early studies suggesting that the mechanical forces are playing some regulatory roles at different stages of the whole process.
But directly pinpointing the exact molecular mechanism for how our body senses the mechanical force and what exactly roles the mechanical forces have on the overall reproductive system has been difficult.
as there are so many different signaling mechanisms that can be affected by mechanical stretch, but they also tend to respond to a bunch of other biochemical signaling, making it very hard to isolate the specific effect from the mechanical force alone.
And that's why in my study, I turn into the mechanically activated channel, the piezo channels, which respond to mechanical stretch by simply opening to allow the calcium to enter the cell.
And despite all the extensive studies, we have not found any physiological ligands that can directly activate piezo, so that the piezo activity is almost always associated with mechanical forces.
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