Heart induction: embryology to cardiomyocyte regeneration

Developmental biologists have uncovered many of the signaling proteins that are required to recruit early embryonic cells to the myocardial lineage. A detailed understanding of their function should provide insights into the difficult task of inducing embryonic stem cells to develop cardiomyocyte precursors for cell-based therapies. These proteins may also prove to be useful to stimulate progenitor cells to differentiate into cardiomyocytes within the damaged heart.