Myocardin marks the earliest cardiac gene expression and plays an important role in heart development.

ABSTRACT: Myocardin belongs to the SAP domain family of transcription factors and is expressed specifically in cardiac and smooth muscle during embryogenesis and in adulthood. Myocardin functions as a transcriptional coactivator of SRF and is sufficient and necessary for smooth muscle gene expression. However, the in vivo function of myocardin during cardiogenesis is not completely understood. Here we clone myocardin from chick embryonic hearts and show that myocardin protein sequences are highly conserved cross species. Detailed studies of chick myocardin expression reveal that myocardin is expressed in cardiac and smooth muscle lineage during early embryogenesis, similar to that found in mouse. Interestingly, the expression of myocardin in the heart was found enriched in the outflow tract and the

SUBMITTER: Chen JF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2694184 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature