Stress represents a multi‐faceted force that is central for the evolution of life. Organisms evolve while adapting to stress and stressful contexts often represent selective bottlenecks. To understand stress effects on biological systems and corresponding coping strategies it is imperative to properly define stress and the resulting strain that triggers compensatory responses in cells and organisms. Here I am deriving such definitions for biological systems based on principles that are established in physics. The relationship between homeostasis of critical biological variables, the elastic limit, the cellular stress response (CSR), cellular homeostasis response (CHR), system dysregulation, and the breaking point (death of the system) is outlined. Dysregulation of homeostatic set‐points of biological variables perturbs the functional properties of the system, shifting them out of the evolutionarily optimized range. Such shifts are accompanied by elevated rates of macromolecular damage, which represents a nonspecific signal for induction of a universal response, the CSR. The CSR complements the CHR in re‐establishing homeostasis of the system as a whole. Moreover, the CSR is essential for coping with suboptimal conditions while the system is in a dysregulated state and for removing excessive damage that accumulates during such periods. The extreme complexity of biological systems and their emergent properties often necessitate monitoring stress effects on many biological variables simultaneously to properly deduce stress effects on the system as a whole. Therefore, increased utilization of systems biology (omics) approaches for characterizing cellular and organismal stress responses facilitates the reductionist dissection of biological stress response mechanisms.

中文翻译：

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根据物理原理定义生物应激和应激反应。

压力代表着多方面的力量，对生命的发展至关重要。有机体在适应压力的同时会进化，压力环境通常代表选择性的瓶颈。要了解压力对生物系统和相应应对策略的影响，必须正确定义压力以及触发细胞和生物体补偿反应的应变。在这里，我基于物理学中确立的原理推导了对生物系统的此类定义。概述了关键生物学变量的稳态，弹性极限，细胞应激反应（CSR），细胞稳态反应（CHR），系统失调和断裂点（系统死亡）之间的关系。生物变量的稳态设定点失调会扰乱系统的功能特性，使它们脱离进化优化范围。这种转变伴随着大分子损伤率的升高，这代表了一种非特异性信号，可以诱导普遍反应，即CSR。CSR补充了CHR，可以​​重新建立整个系统的动态平衡。此外，CSR对于在系统处于失调状态时应对次优条件以及消除在此期间累积的过度损害至关重要。生物系统的极端复杂性及其出现的特性通常需要同时监视许多生物变量的压力效应，以适当地推论整个系统的应力效应。因此，