In 2010, two proteins, Piezo1 and Piezo2, were identified as the long-sought molecular carriers of an excitatory mechanically activated current found in many cells. This discovery has opened the floodgates for studying a vast number of mechanotransduction processes. Over the past six years, groundbreaking research has identified Piezos as ion channels that sense light touch, proprioception, and vascular blood flow, ruled out roles for Piezos in several other mechanotransduction processes, and revealed the basic structural and functional properties of the channel. Here, we review these findings and discuss the many aspects of Piezo function that remain mysterious, including how Piezos convert a variety of mechanical stimuli into channel activation and subsequent inactivation, and what molecules and mechanisms modulate Piezo function.

Diarthrodial joints are essential for load bearing and locomotion. Physiologically, articular cartilage sustains millions of cycles of mechanical loading. Chondrocytes, the cells in cartilage, regulate their metabolic activities in response to mechanical loading. Pathological mechanical stress can lead to maladaptive cellular responses and subsequent cartilage degeneration. We sought to deconstruct chondrocyte mechanotransduction by identifying mechanosensitive ion channels functioning at injurious levels of strain. We detected robust expression of the recently identified mechanosensitive channels, PIEZO1 and PIEZO2. Combined directed expression of Piezo1 and -2 sustained potentiated mechanically induced Ca 2+ signals and electrical currents compared with single-Piezo expression. In primary articular chondrocytes, mechanically evoked Ca 2+ transients produced by atomic force microscopy were inhibited by GsMTx4, a PIEZO-blocking peptide, and by Piezo1-or Piezo2-specific siRNA. We complemented the cellular approach with an explant-cartilage injury model. GsMTx4 reduced chondrocyte death after mechanical injury, suggesting a possible therapy for reducing cartilage injury and posttraumatic osteoarthritis by attenuating Piezo-mediated cartilage mechanotransduction of injurious strains.A rticular cartilage is a hydrated connective tissue that supports loads and minimizes friction in the diarthrodial joints. It has a highly differentiated extracellular matrix (ECM) composed primarily of type II collagen, the large aggregating proteoglycan, aggrecan, and water. Chondrocytes are the only cells in cartilage and are responsible for maintaining and remodeling cartilage through a homeostatic balance of anabolic and catabolic activities. Under normal physiologic conditions, chondrocytes are exposed to millions of cycles of mechanical loading per year (1). These mechanical signals play an important role in regulating chondrocyte anabolic and biosynthetic activity, as evidenced by cartilage atrophy following periods of disuse or immobilization (2-7). However, under abnormal loading conditions (e.g., due to obesity, trauma, or joint instability), mechanical factors play a critical role in the onset and progression of osteoarthritis (1). Such "injurious" loading has been modeled in vitro using explant culture systems that replicate many of the early cellular and molecular events characteristic of osteoarthritis (8). Osteoarthritis is a painful and debilitating disease of weight-bearing joints that affects over 26 million people in the United States (9) with posttraumatic arthritis being responsible for ∼12% of the incidence of osteoarthritis (10).Despite the critical importance of mechanical loading in health and disease of synovial joints, the mechanisms of mechanotransduction of chondrocytes are not fully understood and are likely to differ under physiologic and pathologic conditions (11)(12)(13)(14). Although many different mechanisms have been shown to be involved in chondrocyte mechanotransduction (13,(15)(16)(17), recent st...

Full details of a diastereoselective total synthesis of the vancomycin aglycon are described. Two key aromatic nucleophilic substitution macrocyclizations with formation of the 16-membered diaryl ethers were enlisted for sequential CD and DE ring formations, an effective macrolactamization was developed for closure of the 12-membered biaryl AB ring system, and the defined order of CD, AB, and DE ring closures permitted selective thermal atropisomerism of the newly formed ring systems or their immediate precursors. This indirect control of the atropisomer stereochemistry allowed all synthetic material to be funneled into the one of eight atropdiastereomers characterizing the natural product.