Vibration-based cell engineering

Cell engineering has the aim of producing cells with controlled phenotype for medical use, for example, for cell therapy, cell transplantation or drug discovery. However, chemical induction of cell phenotypes, in particular, the use of inductive media and growth factors, often lacks specificity, might be unsuitable for clinical use and remains costly and difficult to scale up. Alternatively, mechanotransductive stimulation can be applied to engineer cells with specific phenotypes. In this Review, we discuss vibration as a mechanotransductive cell-engineering tool for both in vitro phenotypic control and in vivo regenerative therapy. We examine how vibration devices can be designed to provide specific frequencies and amplitudes to which cells respond through either adhesion-induced or channel-induced mechanotransduction pathways. We further highlight key applications of vibrational stimulation for bone regeneration as well as whole-body vibration as regenerative therapy, identifying important mechanisms of action and gaps in translational pipelines.