Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Dev Cell. 2010 Feb 16;18(2):275-87. doi: 10.1016/j.devcel.2010.01.008.
Little is understood about the molecular mechanisms underlying the morphogenesis of the posterior pole of the heart. Here we show that Wnt2 is expressed specifically in the developing inflow tract mesoderm, which generates portions of the atria and atrio-ventricular canal. Loss of Wnt2 results in defective development of the posterior pole of the heart, resulting in a phenotype resembling the human congenital heart syndrome complete common atrio-ventricular canal. The number and proliferation of posterior second heart field progenitors is reduced in Wnt2(-/-) mutants. Moreover, these defects can be rescued in a temporally restricted manner through pharmacological inhibition of Gsk-3beta. We also show that Wnt2 works in a feedforward transcriptional loop with Gata6 to regulate posterior cardiac development. These data reveal a molecular pathway regulating the posterior cardiac mesoderm and demonstrate that cardiovascular defects caused by loss of Wnt signaling can be rescued pharmacologically in vivo.
对于心脏后极的形态发生的分子机制,人们知之甚少。在这里,我们发现 Wnt2 特异性地在心脏流入道中胚层表达,后者产生了心房和房室管的部分。Wnt2 的缺失导致心脏后极发育缺陷,表现出类似于人类先天性心脏综合征完全共同房室管的表型。Wnt2(-/-)突变体中后部第二心脏场祖细胞的数量和增殖减少。此外,通过在时间上限制 Gsk-3beta 的药理学抑制,可以以暂时的方式挽救这些缺陷。我们还表明,Wnt2 与 Gata6 一起在转录前馈回路中发挥作用,以调节心脏的后极发育。这些数据揭示了调节心脏后极中胚层的分子途径,并表明通过药理学方法可以在体内挽救因 Wnt 信号丢失引起的心血管缺陷。