Published in Cardiac electrophysiology clinics
The pericardial cavity and its boundaries are formed by the reflections of the visceral and parietal pericardial layers. This space is an integral access point for epicardial interventions. As the pericardial layers reflect over the great vessels and the heart, they form sinuses and recesses, which restrict catheter movement. The epicardial vascula...
Published in Biomolecules
The epicardium, the outer layer of the heart, has been of interest in cardiac research due to its vital role in the developing and diseased heart. During development, epicardial cells are active and supply cells and paracrine cues to the myocardium. In the injured adult heart, the epicardium is re-activated and recapitulates embryonic behavior that...
Published in Development (Cambridge, England)
The murine developing epicardium heterogeneously expresses the transcription factors TCF21 and WT1. Here, we show that this cell heterogeneity is conserved in human epicardium, regulated by BNC1 and associated with cell fate and function. Single cell RNA sequencing of epicardium derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC-epi) revealed that dis...
Published in Nature Biotechnology
Cell therapy in a rat model of heart attack is enhanced by stem-cell-derived epicardium.
Published in Heart rhythm
Recurrences of atrial fibrillation (AF) after ablation have been attributed to conduction gaps and nontransmural ablation lesions. The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility of adjunctive percutaneous mapping of the epicardial regions of the left atrium to characterize the transmural extent of substrate and ablation lesions. Between 20...
Published in Pediatric Cardiology
If viewed as a movie, heart morphogenesis appears to unfold in a continuous and seamless manner. At the mechanistic level, however, a series of discreet and separable processes sequentially underlie heart development. This is evident in examining the expansion of the ventricular wall, which accounts for most of the contractile force of each heartbe...
Published in Development (Cambridge, England)
Summary: nrp1a is required for zebrafish heart regeneration in response to cryoinjury by inducing wt1b to promote the revascularization, and the activation and migration of the epicardium.
The presence of a stem cell source in the epicardium that can be stimulated by exogenous delivery of transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) and migrate towards the myocardium can represent a new approach to achieve cardiac repair following myocardial infarction. However, injection of drugs always requires use of carriers which help stabilize the comp...
Published in Journal of molecular and cellular cardiology
Serum response factor (SRF) and the SRF co-activators myocardin-related transcription factors (MRTFs) are essential for epicardium-derived progenitor cell (EPDC)-mobilization during heart development; however, the impact of developmental EPDC deficiencies on adult cardiac physiology has not been evaluated. Here, we utilize the Wilms Tumor-1 (Wt1)-C...
Published in BMC Developmental Biology
BackgroundThe embryonic day E10–13 period of mouse heart development is characterized by robust cardiomyocyte proliferation that creates the compact zone of thickened ventricular wall myocardium. This process is initiated by the formation of the epicardium on the outer heart surface, which releases insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2) as the primary...
