Mechanosensory Protein Helps Tendons Stiffen After Exercise

Researchers identify a role for PIEZO1 in tendon adaptation, and show that people with certain versions of the Piezo1 gene tend to be better jumpers.

Written byCatherine Offord

| 2 min read

Save for Later

Immunofluorescence image of human tenocytes (cell nuclei in blue, actin in red) with PIEZO1 protein labeled in green (Scale bar: 20 ?m)

Listen with Speechify

0:00

2:00

ABOVE: Immunofluorescence image of human tenocytes (cell nuclei in blue, actin in red) with PIEZO1 protein labeled in green (Scale bar: 20 μm)
FABIAN S. PASSINI

The paper
F.S. Passini et al., “Shear-stress sensing by PIEZO1 regulates tendon stiffness in rodents and influences jumping performance in humans,” Nat Biomed Eng, doi:10.1038/s41551-021-00716-x, 2021.

Tendons become stiffer with repeated exercise, particularly when that exercise involves sprinting or jumping. But how they sense and adapt to mechanical forces has long been unclear.

Tackling the problem as a doctoral student at ETH Zurich a few years ago, Fabian Passini studied cells called tenocytes, which sit among the collagen fibers inside tendons. These cells, he found, respond to shear stress (such as occurs when fibers slide past one other as tendons stretch) by letting calcium ions flood in across their membranes.

To investigate how the process is mediated, Passini and colleagues systematically knocked out genes coding for ...

Interested in reading more?

Online only cover of the The Scientist, September 2021 issue

Become a Member of

Receive full access to digital editions of The Scientist, as well as TS Digest, feature stories, more than 35 years of archives, and much more!

Join for free today

Already a member?

Add The Scientist as a preferred Google source to see more of our trusted coverage.

Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
View Full Profile