Mechanical forces in a beating heart affect its cells' DNA, with implications for development and disease
- Written by Corey Neu, Professor of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
Contracting heart cells exert forces on their genetic material that affect how they develop.Benjamin Seelbinder, CC BY-NDSometimes cells can forget what type of cell they are and stop functioning correctly. This commonly happens in cancer, in which mature cells lose aspects of their identity and become more susceptible to begin dividing...