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Myocardial differentiation is dependent upon endocardial signaling during early cardiogenesis in vitro.

ABSTRACT: The endocardium interacts with the myocardium to promote proliferation and morphogenesis during the later stages of heart development. However, the role of the endocardium in early cardiac ontogeny remains under-explored. Given the shared origin, subsequent juxtaposition, and essential cell-cell interactions of endocardial and myocardial cells throughout heart development, we hypothesized that paracrine signaling from the endocardium to the myocardium is crucial for initiating early differentiation of myocardial cells. To test this, we generated an in vitro, endocardial-specific ablation model using the diphtheria toxin receptor under the regulatory elements of the Nfat c1 genomic locus (NFATc1-DTR). Early treatment of NFATc1-DTR mouse embryoid bodies with diphtheria toxin efficiently ablated endocardial cells, which significantly attenuated the percentage of beating EBs in culture and expression of early and late myocardial differentiation markers. The addition of Bmp2 during endocardial ablation partially rescued myocyte differentiation, maturation and function. Therefore, we conclude that early stages of myocardial differentiation rely on endocardial paracrine signaling mediated in part by Bmp2. Our findings provide novel insight into early endocardial-myocardial interactions that can be explored to promote early myocardial development and growth.

SUBMITTER: Saint-Jean L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6526719 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Myocardial differentiation is dependent upon endocardial signaling during early cardiogenesis <i>in vitro</i>.

Saint-Jean Leshana L Barkas Nikolaos N Harmelink Cristina C Tompkins Kevin L KL Oakey Rebecca J RJ Baldwin H Scott HS

Development (Cambridge, England) 20190508 9

The endocardium interacts with the myocardium to promote proliferation and morphogenesis during the later stages of heart development. However, the role of the endocardium in early cardiac ontogeny remains under-explored. Given the shared origin, subsequent juxtaposition, and essential cell-cell interactions of endocardial and myocardial cells throughout heart development, we hypothesized that paracrine signaling from the endocardium to the myocardium is crucial for initiating early differentiat ...[more]

PMID: 31023876

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Project description:Function of the heart begins long before its formation is complete. Analyses in mouse and zebrafish have shown that myocardial function is not required for early steps of organogenesis, such as formation of the heart tube or chamber specification. However, whether myocardial function is required for later steps of cardiac development, such as endocardial cushion (EC) formation, has not been established. Recent technical advances and approaches have provided novel inroads toward the study of organogenesis, allowing us to examine the effects of both genetic and pharmacological perturbations of myocardial function on EC formation in zebrafish. To address whether myocardial function is required for EC formation, we examined silent heart (sih(-/-)) embryos, which lack a heartbeat due to mutation of cardiac troponin T (tnnt2), and observed that atrioventricular (AV) ECs do not form. Likewise, we determined that cushion formation is blocked in cardiofunk (cfk(-/-)) embryos, which exhibit cardiac dilation and no early blood flow. In order to further analyze the heart defects in cfk(-/-) embryos, we positionally cloned cfk and show that it encodes a novel sarcomeric actin expressed in the embryonic myocardium. The Cfk(s11) variant exhibits a change in a universally conserved residue (R177H). We show that in yeast this mutation negatively affects actin polymerization. Because the lack of cushion formation in sih- and cfk-mutant embryos could be due to reduced myocardial function and/or lack of blood flow, we approached this question pharmacologically and provide evidence that reduction in myocardial function is primarily responsible for the defect in cushion development. Our data demonstrate that early myocardial function is required for later steps of organogenesis and suggest that myocardial function, not endothelial shear stress, is the major epigenetic factor controlling late heart development. Based on these observations, we postulate that defects in cardiac morphogenesis may be secondary to mutations affecting early myocardial function, and that, in humans, mutations affecting embryonic myocardial function may be responsible for structural congenital heart disease.

Dataset Information

Myocardial differentiation is dependent upon endocardial signaling during early cardiogenesis in vitro.

Publications

Myocardial differentiation is dependent upon endocardial signaling during early cardiogenesis <i>in vitro</i>.

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