doi: 10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.107.157446
© 2007 American Heart Association, Inc.
Editorials |
Cell Polarization Defects in Early Heart Development
From the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore Md.
Correspondence to Professor Nicholas Katsanis, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, 733 N. Broadway, BRB Suite 439, Baltimore, MD 21205. E-mail katsanis@jhmi.edu
See related article, pages 137–145
Key Words: PCP • cardiac tube • N-cadherin • congenital heart defects
An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract. |
Planar Cell Polarity defects have been associated with a range of phenotypes in vertebrates, most notably the closure of the neural tube, the orientation of stereociliary bundles in the inner ear, and the orientation of hair and fur. In a new study in this issue of Circulation Research, Phillips and colleagues present data that implicate PCP signaling in the developing mouse heart.
Characterized originally as the mechanism governing the polarity of cells in Drosophila, 25 years of genetic and molecular dissection has established Planar Cell Polarity (PCP) as a morphogenetic mechanism in embryonic development that is indispensable for the formation of the body plan. PCP can be defined broadly as a signaling cascade that involves cell/tissue polarity within the plane of the epithelium, which, in Drosophila and to a certain extent in vertebrates, is typically mediated by a small set of "core" proteins. In flies, the best known examples of PCP have been described in relation to the organization of 2 structures: the hexagonal wing cells and their connected hairs, and the omatidia of the compound eye. In each case, the asymmetric distribution of key proteins, such as Strabismus, Prickle, and Flamingo initiates a signaling cascade that passes polarizing information to cells undergoing remodeling.1 In vertebrates, classic examples of PCP events include convergent extension in zebrafish and xenopus, and neural tube closure, stereociliary bundle organization, hair follicle orientation in the skin, and eyelid closure in mammals (see ref. 2 for a recent representative review of the topic;
Related Article:
Circ. Res. 2007 101: 137-145.