The formation of aneurysm of abdominal aorta (AAA) is a multifactorial and predominantly degenerative process that results from a complex interplay between biological processes in the arterial wall and the haemodynamic stimuli on the wall, i.e. wall shear stresses (WSSs) and elongations of the wall directly applied on vascular endothelial cells (ECs) partly regulate the arterial wall remodelling (Golledge et al. 2006; Humphrey and Holzapfel 2012). In the case of AAA, these mechanical stimuli strongly vary in space and time, leading to strong spatiotemporal gradients (Figure 1). The effect of these abnormal mechanical stimuli leads to EC dysfunction. This phenomenon plays a significant role in AAA pathology, in which damage of ECs, associated with changes in endothelial permeability and ...