Work

Vegfaa instructs cardiac muscle hyperplasia in adult zebrafish

Year: 2018

Type: article

Abstract: Significance The human heart is unable to meaningfully recover lost cardiac muscle after injury. As a result, injuries such as myocardial infarction cause irreversible damage that increases the risk for heart failure. Replacing lost or dysfunctional cardiac tissue can potentially reverse or prevent heart failure. Here we demonstrate that experimentally increasing expression of the angiogenic factor vegfaa alone is able to induce a cardiac growth program in zebrafish. We also show evidence that the site of vegfaa expression is important for patterning the cardiac growth response. This work identifies Vegfa as a growth factor capable of activating genetic programs for heart regeneration and has generalizable implications for therapeutic administration of cardiac growth factors.

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1722594115

Authors: Ravi Karra, Matthew J. Foglia, Wen-Yee Choi, Christine Belliveau, Paige DeBenedittis, Kenneth D. Poss

Institutions: Duke University, Duke Medical Center

Language: English

Topic: Congenital heart defects research

Subfield: Molecular Biology

Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

Domain: Life Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green