Mechanobiological Modulation of Cytoskeleton and Calcium Influx in Osteoblastic Cells by Short-Term Focused Acoustic Radiation Force

Mechanotransduction has demonstrated potential for regulating tissue adaptation in vivo and cellular activities in vitro. It is well documented that ultrasound can produce a wide variety of biological effects in biological systems. For example, pulsed ultrasound can be used to noninvasively accelerate the rate of bone fracture healing. Although a wide range of studies has been performed, mechanism for this therapeutic effect on bone healing is currently unknown. To elucidate the mechanism of cellular response to mechanical stimuli induced by pulsed ultrasound radiation, we developed a method to apply focused acoustic radiation force (ARF) (duration, one minute) on osteoblastic MC3T3-E1 cells and observed cellular responses to ARF using a spinning disk confocal microscope. This study demonstrates that the focused ARF induced F-actin cytoskeletal rearrangement in MC3T3-E1 cells. In addition, these cells showed an increase in intracellular calcium concentration following the application of focused ARF. Furthermore, passive bending movement was noted in primary cilium that were treated with focused ARF. Cell viability was not affected. Application of pulsed ultrasound radiation generated only a minimal temperature rise of 0.1°C, and induced a streaming resulting fluid shear stress of 0.186 dyne/cm2, suggesting that hyperthermia and acoustic streaming might not be the main causes of the observed cell responses. In conclusion, these data provide more insight in the interactions between acoustic mechanical stress and osteoblastic cells. This experimental system could serve as basis for further exploration of the mechanosensing mechanism of osteoblasts triggered by ultrasound.