Compressive stress was found to suppress proliferation of human epithelial cells. Researchers directly applied mechanical compression of varying timescales to human epithelial cell monolayers and found a negative correlation between compressional stress and proliferation markers YAP and Ki67, indicating decreased proliferation with increased compression. Western blots identified increased expression of proliferation inhibitor p27 and apoptosis marker cleaved caspase 3 under compression over time, while preliminary results on cellular responses to compressive stress set the basis for continued work.