Abstract
Congenital heart diseases (CHD) result from abnormal morphogenesis of the embryonic cardiovascular system and usually involve defects in specific structural components of the developing heart and vessels. Therefore, an understanding of “Molecular Embryology”, with specific focus on the individual modular steps involved in cardiovascular morphogenesis, is particularly relevant to those wishing to have a better insight into the origin of CHD. Recent advances in molecular embryology suggest that the cardiovascular system arises from multiple distinct embryonic origins, and a population of myocardial precursor cells in the pharyngeal mesoderm anterior to the early heart tube, denoted the “second heart field”, has been identified. Discovery of the second heart field has important implications for the interpretation of cardiac outflow tract development and provides new insights into the morphogenesis of CHD.
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Dr. Deepak Srivastava for his support, and Dr. Katsuhiko Mikoshiba for collaboration in the IP3R project. Research in our laboratory is supported by funding from the Ministry of Education and Science and Automobile Foundation.
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Yamagishi, H., Maeda, J., Uchida, K. et al. Molecular embryology for an understanding of congenital heart diseases. Anat Sci Int 84, 88–94 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12565-009-0023-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12565-009-0023-4