The developing epicardium regulates cardiac chamber morphogenesis by promoting cardiomyocyte growth.

ABSTRACT: The epicardium, the outermost layer of the heart, is an important regulator of cardiac regeneration. However, a detailed understanding of the crosstalk between the epicardium and myocardium during development requires further investigation. Here, we generated three models of epicardial impairment in zebrafish by mutating the transcription factor genes tcf21 and wt1a, and ablating tcf21+ epicardial cells. Notably, all three epicardial impairment models exhibited smaller ventricles. We identified the initial cause of this phenotype as defective cardiomyocyte growth, resulting in reduced cell surface and volume. This failure of cardiomyocyte growth was followed by decreased proliferation and increased abluminal extrusion. By temporally manipulating its ablation, we show that the epicardium is

SUBMITTER: Boezio GLM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9612869 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature