Heart valves function in one of the most mechanically demanding environments in the body to ensure unidirectional blood flow. The resident valve interstitial cells respond to this mechanical environment and maintain the structure and integrity of the heart valve tissues to preserve homeostasis. While the mechanics of organ-tissue-cell heart valve function has progressed, the intracellular signaling network downstream of mechanical stimuli has not been fully elucidated. This has hindered efforts to both understand heart valve mechanobiology and rationally identify drug targets for treating valve disease. In the present work, we review the current literature on VIC mechanobiology and then propose mechanistic mathematical modeling of the mechanically-stimulated VIC signaling response to comprehend the coupling between VIC mechanobiology and valve mechanics.

心脏瓣膜在体内机械要求最高的环境之一中发挥作用，以确保单向血液流动。驻留的瓣膜间质细胞对这种机械环境做出反应并维持心脏瓣膜组织的结构和完整性以保持体内平衡。虽然器官-组织细胞-心脏瓣膜功能的机制已经取得进展，但机械刺激下游的细胞内信号网络尚未完全阐明。这阻碍了了解心脏瓣膜力学生物学和合理确定治疗瓣膜疾病的药物靶点的努力。在目前的工作中，我们回顾了有关 VIC 力学生物学的现有文献，然后提出了机械刺激 VIC 信号响应的机械数学模型，以理解 VIC 力学生物学和瓣膜力学之间的耦合。