Vertebrate cardiogenesis is a complex process involving multiple, distinct tissue types which interact to form a four-chambered heart. Molecules have been identified whose expression patterns co-segregate with the maturation of the atrial and ventricular muscle cell lineages. It is not currently known what role intrinsic events versus external influences play in cardiac chamber morphogenesis. W...

Dysferlin is a sarcolemmal protein present in muscle cells. It responsible for membrane repair. gene (DYSF) mutation, resulting deficiency this protein, termed dysferlinopathy. Clinically, it manifests as early adulthood onset of weakness with markedly elevated creatine kinase levels. The main phenotypes are limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 2B (LGMD2B), affecting proximal muscles, and Miyosh...

INTRODUCTION thymidine3H do not bind fluorescein-labeled antibody to myosin. All of the studies which form the basis of these generalizations about myofibril differentiation (1-7) have been done with skeletal muscle . Yet, it is difficult here to separate cell fusion, ending of DNA synthesis, and initiation of myosin synthesis because the three processes occur concurrently. In cardiac muscle, h...

The influence of somatic stem cells in the stimulation of mammalian cardiac muscle regeneration is still in its early stages, and so far, it has been difficult to determine the efficacy of the procedures that have been employed. The outstanding question remains whether stem cells derived from the bone marrow or some other location within or outside of the heart can populate a region of myocardi...

THE LOSS OF HEART MUSCLE during myocardial infarction is a major worldwide health issue, often leading to debilitating heart failure or death. Terminally differentiated cardiac muscle retains little if any capacity to undergo mitosis, and thus substantive regeneration of the heart after infarction does not occur. As such, mining the pluripotency of stem cells to regenerate lost heart muscle is ...

Arodent cardiac side population cell fraction formed clonal spheroids in serum-free medium, which expressed nestin, Musashi-1, and multi-drug resistance transporter gene 1, markers of undifferentiated neural precursor cells. These markers were lost following differentiation, and were replaced by the expression of neuron-, glial-, smooth muscle cell-, or cardiomyocyte-specific proteins. Cardiosp...

Recent studies have questioned the accepted dogma that the regenerative capacity of the heart following injury is limited. Several apparently distinct populations of resident cardiac progenitor cells may have the potential to regenerate functional heart muscle. Despite this progress, the physiologic role and therapeutic potential of cardiac resident progenitor cells remain unclear.

The calcium, calmodulin-dependent phosphatase calcineurin, regulates growth and gene expression of striated muscles. The activity of calcineurin is modulated by a family of cofactors, referred to as modulatory calcineurin-interacting proteins (MCIPs). In the heart, the MCIP1 gene is activated by calcineurin and has been proposed to fulfill a negative feedback loop that restrains potentially pat...

Formation of the heart requires the coordinated functions of cardiac myocytes, smooth muscle cells, endothelial cells, and connective tissue elements. Several recent studies now reveal that these different cell types arise from a common progenitor (). These findings raise interesting questions about the lineage relationships of cardiovascular progenitor cell populations and suggest possibilitie...