Using Stem Cells to Understand Cardiac Development and Address Heart Birth Defects

Congenital cardiac diseases are among the most common birth defects and can have devastating consequences perinatally as well as throughout the lifetime of the individual.  A clear understanding of the regulation of cardiac development is required to begin to address such defects.  Daniel Garry, SCI faculty member, and his laboratory group have used mouse embryonic stem cells as an in vitro model of heart development.  Cardiac tissues derived from genetically edited stem cells that do not express a regulatory protein called FOXK1 were compared to those generated by control stem cells.  The expression of cardiogenic genes and signaling pathways known to promote cardiac differentiation were fundamentally altered in the genetically modified cells such that cardiogenesis was markedly impaired.  These studies demonstrate the importance of FOXK1 in cardiac development, and provide a foundation for addressing the mechanisms of congenital cardiac defects.  Read the published paper.