Mechanostimulatory Cues Determine Intestinal Fibroblast Fate and Profibrotic Remodeling in a Physiodynamic Human Gut‐on‐a‐Chip (Adv. Sci. 36/2026)

Profibrotic Mechanoadaptive Remodeling The cover image features a stylized representation of the human intestine as the background, overlaid with a schematic illustration of a Gut-on-a-chip microdevice. A magnified inset highlights key mechanobiological phenomena. The intestinal epithelial barrier is depicted as compromised, with damaged epithelial cells shown in red. Luminal fluid flow (gold) is illustrated to convey localized mechanical forces acting upon the tissue interface. Beneath the epithelial layer, normal fibroblasts (blue) exhibit pronounced morphological transformation, organizing into three-dimensional aggregates (gray clusters) with an outer layer of activated cells (pink), indicative of phenotypic transition. This process is accompanied by active extracellular matrix remodeling, emphasizing the dynamic interplay between epithelial injury, mechanical cues, and stromal activation within the engineered microphysiological system. More details can be found in the Research Article by Hyun Jung Kim and co-workers (DOI: 10.1002/advs.202516040).