Pulmonary vascular mechanics in pulmonary hypertension

Biomechanics and mechanobiology are critical to understanding pulmonary disease processes, since altered biological structural mechanics with disease are not only metrics of altered function but also directly affect biological processes, such as signaling and remodeling of the structures themselves. This chapter reviews the current investigations of pulmonary arterial mechanics and mechanobiology at multiple scales (cell, tissue, and organ) using different approaches (experimental and computational). As it is increasingly recognized that the study of the structure–function relationship of pulmonary vascular system components should be placed in the context of right heart function, which predicts clinical outcomes in pulmonary hypertension, the biomechanical mechanisms of right heart failure due to altered pulmonary vasculature biomechanics and mechanobiology are an open and important area of research.