Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells Case Study

Vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) and extracellular matrix (ECM):
Blood vessels, include arteries that transport blood from the heart to the systemic circulation, and veins that transport blood back again into the heart. A remarkable change in blood vessel structure and function happened, with the emergence of a high-pressure, pulsatile circulatory system in vertebrates. Blood vessels then evolved from simple tubes for channeling blood or other body fluids from a low-pressure heart. According to their sizes and structures, arteries can be subdivided into four categories: large elastic arteries, medium-sized muscular arteries, small arteries (s modulus, is used to describe the deformation of an elastic artery when an internal force is applied on it. This modulus is defined as the ratio of the stress (σ) to the strain (ε), or the slope …show more content…
In the aortic wall, stress is defined as force (F) per unit cross-sectional area, it mainly includes tension, which is stress that acts to dilate the aorta, and shear stress, which is stress that acts parallel to a surface. Strain is defined as deformation per unit of the original length, a relative change in shape or size, which is the ratio of the change caused by the stress to the original state of the aortic wall. And thus, the stiffer the aorta is, the higher the elastic modulus will be, because of a less strain as the result of less relative deformation. On the other hand, arterial stiffness is usually expressed in the quantitative terms of compliance and distensibility [54]. Compliance is defined as a change in cross-sectional area for a given change in pressure. Distensibility is defined a fractional change in volume or cross-sectional area for a given change in pressure. They are