Iron dynamics in Al-Cu-Fe quasicrystals and approximants: Mössbauer and neutron experiments.

We present new results on the iron dynamics in the icosahedral quasicrystal i-AlCuFe and two cubic approximants as well as the non-approximant Al-Cu-Fe cubic B2 phase. Conventional Mössbauer spectroscopy is used as well as, for the i-AlCuFe phase, high Doppler velocity Mössbauer spectroscopy and quasielastic neutron scattering for samples with different Fe isotope contents. We show that in the i-phase the Fe Lamb-Mössbauer recoilless fraction decreases below that predicted for lattice vibrations alone for temperatures above about 550 K. This decrease is correlated with the onset of a quasielastic signal seen in both Mössbauer and neutron backscattering spectroscopy, which indicates the presence above 550 K of Fe jump processes confined in a local cage. The timescale of the Fe jumps (660 ps at 1000 K) and their temperature dependence differ widely from those of Cu jumps in the same i-AlCuFe quasicrystal. From the temperature dependence of the quadrupole splitting of the (57)Fe Mössbauer spectrum, one can distinguish two kinds of Fe jumps, one starting at 550 K and the second above 800 K. In the two cubic approximants, a loss in the Fe recoilless fraction also occurs above 550 K, revealing the same kind of Fe dynamics as in the i-phase but the effect is smaller. On the other hand, no anomalous Fe dynamics (other than lattice vibrations) is detected in the B2-AlCuFe phase. Since the cubic approximants possess similar local configurations as the quasicrystal, we conclude that locally a Penrose tile description is appropriate. This shows that the detected Fe jumps can be interpreted in terms of phason-like local tiling flips.

Cartilage anlagen adapt in response to static deformation.

Connective tissue adaptation, including the development of cartilaginous anlagen into bones, is widely believed to be related to dynamic, intermittent load and stress histories. Static stresses, on the other hand, are generally believed deleterious in tissue adaptation. Using serial MRI in a natural human experiment (manipulation and corrective casting of infant clubfoot), we have observed casting produces two effects: (1) the well recognized change in relative positions of the hindfoot anlagen; (2) a newly recognized immediate shape change in the anlagen. These changes seemingly enhance the rate of growth of the anlagen and of the ossific nucleus. The shape change or deformation in the anlagen would occur as a result of alterations in the magnitudes and directions of loading from soft tissue attachments and muscle activity and would necessarily be associated with changes in the stress states within the anlagen and, when present, the ossific nuclei. Given the known role of load and stress history in tissue adaptation, we presume the reduced stress histories influence the enhanced growth rates. These observations contradict some current theories of tissue adaptation since static, rather than dynamic stresses play a crucial role in accelerating the growth and development of anlagen in the infant clubfoot.

Structural consequences of subchondral bone involvement in segmental osteonecrosis of the femoral head.

Appearance of a crescent sign usually marks the onset of necrotic femoral head collapse, but very little is known about which local factors contribute most critically to avoiding or postponing fracture of at-risk juxtaarticular cancellous bone. A three-dimensional finite element model was used to test the hypothesis that an initially mechanically uncompromised subchondral plate could provide a substantial degree of stress protection to a weakened underlying segmental infarction. The computational simulation of osteonecrosis showed that the principal stress distribution for an assumption of subchondral plate weakening (given also an underlying, comparably weakened segmental infarction) differed inappreciably from that of a normal femoral head. However, the tendency for local structural failure, as reflected in the ratio of stress to strength, was substantially higher in the former instance. If, instead, the mechanical integrity of the subchondral plate overlying the weakened segmental infarction was assumed to be preserved, computed stress levels in the at-risk subjacent necrotic cancellous bone were still over 70% as high as for the weakened-plate case. The data thus indicate that even a fully normal subchondral plate can provide only modest stress protection of a weakened underlying segmental infarction, whereas weakening of the necrotic cancellous bone throughout the infarction induces marked stress increase in the overlying subchondral plate. These findings suggest that the onset of collapse is probably dominated much more strongly by the degree of structural degradation of the cancellous bone within the main infarct body, than by the degree of structural degradation within the subchondral plate.

Cell alignment is induced by cyclic changes in cell length: studies of cells grown in cyclically stretched substrates.

Many types of cells, when grown on the surface of a cyclically stretched substrate, align away from the stretch direction. Although cell alignment has been described as an avoidance response to stretch, the specific deformation signal that causes a cell population to become aligned has not been identified. Planar surface deformation is characterized by three strains: two normal strains describe the length changes of two initially perpendicular lines and one shear strain describes the change in the angle between the two lines. The present study was designed to determine which, if any, of the three strains was the signal for cell alignment. Human fibroblasts and osteoblasts were grown in deformable, rectangular, silicone culture dishes coated with ProNectin, a biosynthetic polymer containing the RGD ligand of fibronectin. 24 h after plating the cells, the dishes were cyclically stretched at 1 Hz to peak dish stretches of 0% (control), 4%, 8%, and 12%. After 24 h of stretching, the cells were fixed, stained, and their orientations measured. The cell orientation distribution was determined by calculating the percent of cells whose orientation was within each of eighteen 5 degrees angular intervals. We found that the alignment response was primarily driven by the substrate strain which tended to lengthen the cell (axial strain). We also found that for each cell type there was an axial strain limit above which few cells were found. The axial strain limit for fibroblasts, 4.2 +/- 0.4%, (mean +/- 95% confidence), was lower than for osteoblasts, 6.4 +/- 0.6%. We suggest that the fibroblasts are more responsive to stretch because of their more highly developed actin cytoskeleton.

Proliferative and phenotypic responses of bone-like cells to mechanical deformation.

Limited in vivo and in vitro experiments suggest that bone and bone-like cells respond to mechanical signals in a trigger-like rather than a dose-response fashion; i.e., they fail to respond until they have been stimulated with some given number of cycles of loading, and then once they respond, additional cycles produce little or no effect. To explore this notion, rat calvaria-derived osteoblast-like cells and the cell line MC3T3-E1 were plated at a high cell density (5,000 cells/mm2) on silicone membranes coated with type-I collagen and were allowed to attach for 24 hours. The membranes then were exposed to vacuum pressure (-1 kPa, 0.5 Hz) on a daily basis, and cultures were assayed every 2 days for 2 weeks. The proliferation of nontransformed cells increased 7-fold with as few as four daily cycles but not with one cycle per day. Furthermore, 1,800 cycles of vacuum did not result in a greater response than four cycles per day. We observed inverse phenotypic responses: the expression of osteocalcin was depressed compared with controls in the cultures of osteoblast-like cells that were strained with as few as four cycles per day. Alkaline phosphatase activity was depressed in the cultures of both the osteoblast-like cells and the MC3T3-E1 cells exposed to low vacuum pressures (-1 kPa) with four daily cycles of vacuum pressure. Increasing the vacuum magnitude did not affect the occurrence of a "trigger response" between one and four cycles of vacuum application.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Effects of osteochondral defect size on cartilage contact stress.

Contact stress distributions were studied in vitro for 13 dog knees, with full-thickness osteochondral defects drilled in the weight-bearing area of both femoral condyles. Diameters of the circular defects were concentrically enlarged from 1 to 7 mm. Digitally-imaged Fuji film was used to record cartilage contact stress distribution on femoral condyles for each increment of defect diameter. All specimens showed at least some tendency for contact stress concentration at the rim of the defects. However, detailed distributions had large interspecimen variability and, within a given specimen, contact stress distributions became progressively more nonuniform around the defect rim as the diameter was enlarged. Averaged over the full series of 26 condyles, circumferential mean cartilage contact stress around the defect rim was only moderately higher (by 10-30%) than intact surface's peak local contact stress [series average = 6.2 mega pascals (MPa)]. Maximal rim stress concentration occurred for 2 mm defects, there being a consistent trend toward mild rim stress decrease with further defect enlargement. Such modest contact stress elevations, per se, are probably insufficient to inhibit defect repair or to cause degeneration of surrounding cartilage. However, near the defect rim (for all diameters), the radial component of the gradient of contact stress (i.e., radial-direction variation of contact stress) was consistently elevated by an order of magnitude above that for intact, condyle articular cartilage.

Are leg electromyogram profiles symmetrical?

Electromyographic (EMG) patterns reflect function of the neuromuscular system. Abnormality of a given pattern may be established by comparison with that of the contralateral (presumably normal) limb if one ensures a difference beyond normal degrees of symmetry. We studied EMG patterns in six homologous knee muscles during freely selected, slow, and fast gaits in normal subjects. EMG signals were electronically conditioned to produce linear envelopes; envelopes from at least eight cycles from each subject at each speed were ensemble averaged. Grand ensemble averages for each muscle and speed were assembled from all subjects for right and left muscles. Transformed correlation coefficients (r') and variance ratios established the degree of similarity. All muscles exhibited a fair degree of symmetry (mean r' = 0.797-0.953), but we saw exceptions. On rare occasion, muscles repeatedly exhibited monophasic signals on one side and biphasic on the other. With increasing speed, signals generally became more repeatable, but we occasionally saw monophasic patterns becoming biphasic or vice versa. Considerable caution is essential before presuming any given pattern is abnormal. To ensure that a given pattern is abnormal one could establish that the pattern lies outside some statistical limits for normal population patterns controlled for speed and outside statistical limits for normal symmetry. Alternatively, one could determine the level of statistical differences in EMG patterns associated with distinct differences in level of functional performance between normal subjects and patients.

Three-dimensional geometric and structural symmetry of the turkey ulna.

Structural models of long-bone preparations usually assume left-right symmetry of contralateral bones under normal (baseline) conditions. To obtain insight on how this assumption affects the detection of subtle changes (as from functional adaptation), we formally examined the three-dimensional geometric and structural symmetry of paired long bones, using contemporary image reconstruction and stress analysis techniques. Nine pairs of ulnae from normal male turkeys were reconstructed computationally from serial transverse images obtained by either (a) mechanical sectioning and digital photographic imaging or (b) computed tomography. Computed tomography scans allowed greater precision in reconstruction than did digitally imaged photographs. Left-right comparisons of parameters of geometric symmetry (from computed tomography reconstructions) revealed average differences in whole bone volume and whole bone principal moments of inertia of 3.6 and 3.0%, respectively. Differences in bone curvature were indexed as noncolinearity of left compared with (mirrored) right centroidal axes, giving a disparity of 0.7 +/- 0.3 mm. Within the longitudinal central 20% of the diaphysis (the customary region for histomorphometry), average left-right differences in cross-sectional area and area principal moments of inertia for computed tomography images were 4.7 and 5.0%, respectively. The overlap of longitudinally paired cross sections of the mid-diaphysis, aligned at common centroids and oriented in the respective principal inertial directions, was greatest (as much as 95%) in the central 20% of the diaphysis. Paired three-dimensional finite element models demonstrated nearly identical left and right stress/strain fields throughout the ulnar diaphyses for both compressive and torsional loading. Our data suggest that the assumption of contralateral geometric symmetry in long bones should be judged in the context of the specific attribute of symmetry under consideration; however, we conclude that for purposes of finite element modeling the assumption of symmetry is reasonable.

Thoracic spine centers of rotation in the sagittal plane.

The purpose of this study was to determine in vitro the centers of rotation of thoracic functional spinal units in the sagittal plane. The center of rotation is a convenient concept and part of a precise method of documenting the kinematics of a joint moving in a plane. Fresh cadaver functional spinal units from the thoracic region were utilized. Six load types were used that produced motions only in the sagittal plane, namely anterior and posterior shear forces, flexion and extension moments, and compression and distraction forces. The resulting motion with three degrees of freedom was measured with dial gauges. Statistical methods were used to analyze data from the viewpoint of vertebral level, load magnitude, and load type. Only the load type was found to be significantly related to the location of the centers of rotation. Although there was significant variability in the centers of rotation, there were definite locations related to each load type. The average center of rotation was 15-45 mm directly below the geometric center of the moving vertebra. The results of the present study may be helpful in the clinical interpretation of spinal kinematic studies.

Contact stress aberrations following imprecise reduction of simple tibial plateau fractures.

Despite the well-recognized association between poorly reduced intraarticular fractures and late degenerative changes, current guidelines regarding the reduction precision necessary to avoid excessive cartilage pressures are based largely on anecdotal clinical observations. To gain a quantitative appreciation of the relation between local pressure elevations and fracture reduction imprecision, a simplified laboratory cadaver model of minimally displaced tibial plateau fractures was developed. Cartilage contact stress distributions were measured as a function of depressed fragment malreduction in seven knees, using high-resolution (100 pixels/mm2) digital image scans of Fuji-film stain patterns. The contact stress data showed a general trend of increases of peak local pressure with increasing fracture site incongruity, and in a few isolated instances the effect was very pronounced. Across the whole series, however, statistically significant departures from anatomic pressure levels did not occur until the fragment stepoff was greater than 1.5 mm. Even at the 3-mm stepoff level, for which the depressed fragment usually no longer made contact with the femoral condyle, the peak local pressure values on the intact side of the fracture line averaged only approximately 75% greater than those prevailing anatomically. Given the successful clinical outcomes normally achieved for conservatively managed simple tibial plateau fractures having stepoff magnitudes (5-10 mm) clearly sufficient to insure fragment articular noncontact, the present laboratory results suggest that nominally factor-of-two peak local pressure elevations, provided that they occur over only small portions of the cartilage surface, are probably within the long-term overall tolerance range of an articular joint.

A stress analysis of acetabular reconstruction in protrusio acetabuli.

UNLABELLED: We are reporting the results of a finite-element analysis of acetabular reconstruction for total hip replacement in the presence of protrusio acetabuli. In a protruded acetabulum, cortical bone stresses on the medial part of the pelvic wall increase with medial placement of the acetabular component, while normal placement of the component (more lateral placement) reduces these stresses. Metal backing of a polyethylene acetabular component causes a reduction in the peak cement and trabecular-bone stresses. A metal protrusio ring about only the periphery of the acetabular component increases stress levels within the lateral part of the pelvic cortex and has little effect on stresses in the medial part of the pelvic wall. A complete metal protrusio cup increases stresses in the lateral part of the pelvic cortex while decreasing substantially the stresses in the medial part of the cortex and the trabecular bone. Prosthetic reinforcement of the medial part of the acetabular wall has little effect on stress patterns in the acetabular region. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: The major long-term problem with cemented total hip prostheses is loosening. Loosening is probably related in part to the stress state in the cement and surrounding bone. The protruded acetabulum is particularly difficult to reconstruct in a manner that ensures longevity of the total hip replacement. In patients with protrusio acetabuli, the prosthetic acetabulum should be placed in a normal and not in a protruded position. A metal-backed acetabular component or a complete metal cup incorporated within the cement reduces stress levels within the medial aspect of the pelvic bone and thus may reduce the incidence of loosening.

Reconstruction of the hip. A mathematical approach to determine optimum geometric relationships.

The normal mechanical function of the hip is substantially altered by a variety of disorders. The surgical treatment of such conditions, particularly total hip replacement, offers the opportunity not only to replace the articular surfaces of the joint, but also to improve long-term mechanical function by reducing the loads on the joint. A mathematical model of the hip was developed to evaluate the effects of such surgically achievable mechanical alterations as acetabular placement, femoral shaft-prosthetic neck angle, neck length of the femoral prosthesis, and transfer of the greater trochanter. The loads on the hip were lowered significantly by placing the center of the acetabulum as far medially, inferiorly, and anteriorly as was anatomically feasible. Minimum joint contact forces occurred when the femoral shaft-prosthetic neck angles were small, while the minimum moments about the prosthesis stem-neck junction were found when the angles were 130 to 140 degrees. A neck length of the femoral prosthesis of thirty-five millimeters resulted in moments that were lower than those for a neck length of forty-five millimeters. Lateral transfer of the greater trochanter reduced hip-joint forces and moments but distal transfer had little mechanical effect.

Mechanical properties of the human thoracic spine as shown by three-dimensional load-displacement curves.

The mechanical properties of the human spine are best described by load-displacement curves which include coupling effects. Three-dimensional load-displacement curves were obtained for all levels of the human thoracic spine using fresh cadaver spines in an atmosphere containing 100 per cent humidity at 22 degrees centigrade to stimulate a physiological environment. Six forces and six moments were applied, one at a time, to the center of the upper vertebra while its subadjacent fellow was fixed. Assuming sagittal plane symmetry, vertebral displacement was measured in three-dimensional space and load-displacement curves were plotted for the main as well as the coupled motions. The thirty-six curves necessary to define the mechanical characteristics of each motion segment completely were determined for all eleven thoracic levels. The curves showed that all the thoracic spine is a complex three-dimensional structure with coupled motion characteristics. Axial forces (compression/tension) resulted in significant horizontal displacements. Spine motion segments were more flexible in flexion than in extension. The spine was found to be least flexible during axial compression.

Hip arthrodesis. A long-term follow-up.

In a retrospective study, we examined twenty-eight patients who had had an arthrodesis seventeen to fifty years previously (average, thirty-five years). Hip and knee ratings were obtained, as well as anteroposterior and flexion-extension radiographs of the lumbar spine and standing anteroposterior radiographs of the knees and hips. About 60 per cent of the patients had pain in the ipsilateral knee (average time to onset, twenty-three years after arthrodesis), and a similar percentage had back pain (average time to onset, twenty-five years after the operation). Pain in the contralateral hip occurred in approximately 25 per cent of the patients (average time to onset, twenty years after arthrodesis). Only one patient was unemployed due to disabling pain in the back or knee. Seventy per cent of the patients could walk more than one mile (1.6 kilometers), and a similar percentage could sit comfortably for at least two hours. Seventy-five per cent of the patients had anteroposterior laxity of the ipsilateral knee, and 80 per cent had mediolateral laxity. The patients whose hip was fused in some abduction more frequently had pain in the ipsilateral knee and the back, and they had greater degenerative changes in the ipsilateral knee than the patients whose hip was fused in adduction or in the neutral position. Six patients had undergone total hip arthroplasty for pain in the back or the ipsilateral knee, or both, and all had marked relief of back pain, while two of four had relief of pain in the knee. Two patients had a total knee arthroplasty for relief of pain in the ipsilateral knee.

Mechanical consequences of core drilling and bone-grafting on osteonecrosis of the femoral head.

We employed an anatomically realistic three-dimensional finite-element model to explore several biomechanical variables involved in coring or bone-grafting of a segmentally necrotic femoral head. The mechanical efficacy of several variants of these procedures was indexed in terms of their alteration of the stress:strength ratio in at-risk necrotic cancellous bone. For coring alone, the associated structural compromise was generally modest, provided that the tract did not extend near the subchondral plate. Cortical bone-grafting was potentially of great structural benefit for femoral heads in which the graft penetrated deeply into the superocentral or lateral aspect of the lesion, ideally with abutment against the subchondral plate. By contrast, central or lateral grafts that stopped well short of the subchondral plate were contraindicated biomechanically because they caused marked elevations in stress on the necrotic cancellous bone. Calculated levels of stress were relatively insensitive to variations in the diameter of the graft.

An analysis of femoral component stem design in total hip arthroplasty.

UNLABELLED: A comparative study of the various aspects of the design of the femoral components of total hip replacements was done using three-dimensional finite-element stress analysis. The aspects of deisgn that were considered included: length, cross-sectional size, and material properties of the stem; presence or absence of a medial collar; and material properties of the cement. We found that increasing the length of the stem generally increased the stress present in the stem while decreasing the stress present in the cement. Increasing the cross-sectional size of the stem decreased the stress in both the stem and the cement. Decreasing the modulus of elasticity of the stem material decreased the stress in the stem but increased the stress in the cement. Increasing the modulus of elasticity of the cement decreased the stress in the stem and increased the stress in the cement. Contact of the collar of a femoral prosthesis with the calcar femorale increased the longitudinal component of stress within the region of the calcar femorale. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: The mechanical longevity of a total joint reconstruction is related to the stress distribution throughout the prosthesis, cement, and bone. The stress distribution is related to a number of factors, including the design of the prosthetic components (for example, stem size, stem length, stem modulus of elasticity, and cement modulus of elasticity). Reducing the stresses in prosthetic components to minimize the risk of failure can be accomplished only through systematic analysis of all components of the reconstruction.

Interstitial bone stress distributions accompanying ingrowth of a screen-like prosthesis anchorage layer.

Recent development of screen-like bonded weaves of titanium wire for orthopaedic implant anchorage affords a unique opportunity for analytic studies of porous ingrowth micromechanics. The regular geometry of individual wires and the periodicity of the mesh weave are exploited in a series of two-dimensional finite element models, mapping interstitial bone stress fields as a function of ingrowth depth and wire size, shape, and spacing. When the depth of bone ingrowth was less than one wire diameter, peak bone stresses always occurred at the leading (i.e. deepest) edge of bone ingrowth, immediately adjacent to the wire. As ingrowth depth approached a full wire diameter, peak local bone stresses were 2-9 times the nominal applied host bone stress, with greater stresses occurring for lower screen weave densities. Within multiple screen layers, the top layer consistently experienced the peak stress and transmitted most of the applied load, regardless of the number of underlying screen layers surrounded by bone. Neither wire size variations nor partial wire flattening substantially affected general trends in stress predictions.

The sensitivity of muscle force predictions to changes in physiologic cross-sectional area.

The mechanical effects of a muscle are related in part to the size of the muscle and to its location relative to the joint it crosses. For more than a century, researchers have expressed muscle size by its 'physiological cross-sectional area' (PCSA). Researchers mathematically calculating muscle and joint forces typically use some expression of a muscle's PCSA to constrain the solution to one which is reasonable (i.e. a solution in which small muscles may not have large forces, and large muscles have large forces when expected or when there is significant electromyographic activity). It is obvious that muscle mass (and therefore any expression of PCSA) varies significantly from person to person, even in individuals of similar weight and height. Since it is not practical to predict the PCSA of each muscle in a living subject's limb or trunk, it is important to generally understand the sensitivity of muscle force solutions to possible variations in PCSA. We used nonlinear optimization techniques to predict 47 muscle forces and hip contact forces in a living subject. The PCSA (volume/muscle fiber length) of each of 47 lower limb muscle elements from two cadaver specimens and the 47 PCSA's reported by pierrynowski were input into an optimization algorithm to create three solution sets. The three solutions were qualitatively similar but at times a predicted muscle force could vary as much as two to eight times. In contrast, the joint force solutions were within 11% of each other and, therefore, much less variable.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The effects of grip proximity on perceived local in vitro tendon strain.

In vitro tensile loadings were performed on a series of sequentially-shortened canine tendon specimens which had been instrumented with mercury strain gages. The purpose of the experiments was to determine the tendon length necessary to ensure that the perceived local strain was effectively independent of the gripping configuration. The results showed that the mercury strain gage outputs exhibited statistically significant departures from initial (long tendon) values only when the tendons were shortened to lengths of less than about eight diameter multiples.

Cellular deformation reversibly depresses RT-PCR detectable levels of bone-related mRNA.

Osteoblastic cells respond to mechanical stimuli with alterations in proliferation and/or phenotypic expression. In some cases, these responses occur within only a few applications of stimuli (i.e. 'cycle-dependent trigger response') rather than in a dose-dependent manner. To explore potential mechanisms of the cycle dependent trigger response, we raised the following questions: (1) Does strain of bone cells alter gene expression; if so, how quickly does it occur and how long does it last? (2) Are alterations in message level strain magnitude dependent? (3) Are alterations in steady-state message levels cycle dependent? Cultures were evaluated for osteocalcin mRNA one week following a daily stretch application at four stretch magnitudes and four cycle numbers and compared to nonstretched controls. Steady state mRNA message was ascertained prior to and at 10, 20, 30, 60, 120, 180, and 240 min following initiation of stretch. Following mRNA isolation, first strand cDNA synthesis was performed and fluorometrically quantitated. A reverse transcriptase based PCR (RT-PCR) approach allowed assessment of osteocalcin mRNA levels from microcultures (50,000 cells per 10 microliters culture or 5000 cells mm2) of rat calvarial osteoblasts. Optimized PCR was performed using primers to the bone specific protein, osteocalcin (OC) and two 'housekeeping' genes, beta-actin and GAP-DH. PCR products were separated on 4% agarose gels and band intensities digitized with relative quantitation based on internal standards in each gel. The lowest magnitude of stretch (- 1 KPa) at 1800 cycles per day reproducibly depressed message for osteocalcin, but not beta-actin when assayed immediately following the cessation of strain application. By three hours following the initiation of stretch, message levels returned to control values. At the time of stretch cessation, the 1800 cycle stretch regimen diminished (p < 0.0001) steady-state osteocalcin message independently of the four stretch magnitudes. Stretch for 300 cycles failed to depress (p = 0.05) osteocalcin message cultures at any time, but 600 cycles depressed message by 30 min. By one and two hours, cultures stretch 600, 900, and 1800 cycles showed similar levels of message depression. Four hours following the initiation of stretch, message levels returning to nonstrained levels in all groups. We conclude that alterations in cell response to strain are in part mediated by gene expression, that alterations last 3-4 h in this system, and that the message mechanism itself exhibits a trigger-response dependency to cycle number.