Effects of In Vitro Laminar Shear Stress as an Exercise Mimetic on Endothelial Cell Health

Endothelial dysfunction has been associated with a host of cardiovascular diseases and is thought to be an important contributor to many of them. Exercise training is a potent nonpharmacological modality to improve endothelial dysfunction. It is thought that the elevated intravascular shear stress is what leads to exercise-induced improvements in endothelial function. Microarray studies show that the gene expression profile of endothelial cells is dramatically altered by high physiological levels of laminar shear stress. Overwhelmingly, the genetic program of protein expression in response to in vitro laminar shear stress is vasoprotective and atheroprotective. There are three purposes of this chapter: (1) to review endothelial dysfunction at the cellular level, (2) to describe the different types of shear stress to which endothelial cells are exposed and the methodology used to examine them; and (3) to specifically describe the effects of high physiological levels of laminar shear stress on the expression of genes and proteins directly related to endothelial health.