Cardiogenesis with a focus on vasculogenesis and angiogenesis

The initial intraembryonic vasculogenesis occurs in the cardiogenic mesoderm. Here, a cell population of proendocardial cells detaches from the mesoderm that subsequently generates the single endocardial tube by forming vascular plexuses. In the course of embryogenesis, the endocardium retains vasculogenic, angiogenic and haematopoietic potential. The coronary blood vessels that sustain the rapidly expanding myocardium develop in the course of the formation of the cardiac loop by vasculogenesis and angiogenesis from progenitor cells of the proepicardial serosa at the venous pole of the heart as well as from the endocardium and endothelial cells of the sinus venosus. Prospective coronary endothelial cells and progenitor cells of the coronary blood vessel walls (smooth muscle cells, perivascular cells) originate from different cell populations that are in close spatial as well as regulatory connection with each other. Vasculo- and angiogenesis of the coronary blood vessels are for a large part regulated by the epicardium and epicardium-derived cells. Vasculogenic and angiogenic signalling pathways include the vascular endothelial growth factors, the angiopoietins and the fibroblast growth factors and their receptors.