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Planar Cell Polarity Signaling in Mammalian Cardiac Morphogenesis
1Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
Insights
This review details how the planar cell polarity pathway guides heart development. Understanding this process is key for addressing congenital heart defects and advancing regenerative medicine.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Biology
- Cardiovascular Research
- Regenerative Medicine
Background:
- The mammalian heart forms early and is vital for embryonic development.
- Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are common, causing significant childhood morbidity and mortality.
- Understanding heart formation aids CHD etiology, diagnosis, therapy, and cardiac repair.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review recent advances in understanding heart development.
- To highlight the role of the planar cell polarity pathway in heart morphogenesis.
- To explore how this pathway influences arterial and venous pole development.
Main Methods:
- Review of recent scientific literature on heart development.
- Focus on the planar cell polarity pathway's mechanisms.
- Analysis of its role in regulating polarized morphogenetic processes.
Main Results:
- The planar cell polarity pathway is a conserved regulator of vertebrate morphogenesis.
- This pathway precisely orchestrates growth, differentiation, and morphogenesis during heart tube remodeling.
- It plays a critical role in the development of both arterial and venous poles of the heart.
Conclusions:
- The planar cell polarity pathway is essential for proper heart formation.
- Insights into this pathway can inform strategies for treating congenital heart defects.
- This knowledge may also advance regenerative medicine for adult heart repair.
Abstract:
The mammalian heart is the first organ to form and is critical for embryonic survival and development. With an occurrence of 1%, congenital heart defects (CHDs) are also the most common birth defects in humans, and major cause of childhood morbidity and mortality (Hoffman and Kaplan in J Am Coll Cardiol 39(12):1890-1900, 2002; Samanek in Cardiol Young 10(3):179-185, 2000). Understanding how the heart forms will not only help to determine the etiology and to design diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for CHDs, but may also provide insight into regenerative medicine to repair injured adult hearts. Mammalian heart development requires precise orchestration of growth, differentiation, and morphogenesis to remodel a simple linear heart tube into an intricate, four-chambered heart with properly connected pulmonary artery and aorta, a structural basis for establishing the pulmonary and systemic circulation. Here we will review the recent advance in our understanding of how the planar cell polarity pathway, a highly conserved morphogenetic engine in vertebrates, regulates polarized morphogenetic processes to contribute to both the arterial and venous poles development of the heart.
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