Cardiac Development and Factors Influencing the Development of Congenital Heart Defects (CHDs): Part I

The traditional description of cardiac development involves progression from a cardiac crescent to a linear heart tube, which in the phase of transformation into a mature heart forms a cardiac loop and is divided with the septa into individual cavities. Cardiac morphogenesis involves numerous types of cells originating outside the initial cardiac crescent, including neural crest cells, cells of the second heart field origin, and epicardial progenitor cells. The development of the fetal heart and circulatory system is subject to regulatation by both genetic and environmental processes. The etiology for cases with congenital heart defects (CHDs) is largely unknown, but several genetic anomalies, some maternal illnesses, and prenatal exposures to specific therapeutic and non-therapeutic drugs are generally accepted as risk factors. New techniques for studying heart development have revealed many aspects of cardiac morphogenesis that are important in the development of CHDs, in particular transposition of the great arteries.