Journal
NATURE
Volume 454, Issue 7200, Pages 109-U5Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/nature07060
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Funding
- NHLBI NIH HHS [P50 HL074734-05, T32 HL007572, P50 HL074734] Funding Source: Medline
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The heart is formed from cardiogenic progenitors expressing the transcription factors Nkx2-5 and Isl1 ( refs 1 and 2). These multipotent progenitors give rise to cardiomyocyte, smooth muscle and endothelial cells, the major lineages of the mature heart(3,4). Here we identify a novel cardiogenic precursor marked by expression of the transcription factor Wt1 and located within the epicardium - an epithelial sheet overlying the heart. During normal murine heart development, a subset of these Wt1(+) precursors differentiated into fully functional cardiomyocytes. Wt1(+) proepicardial cells arose from progenitors that express Nkx2-5 and Isl1, suggesting that they share a developmental origin with multipotent Nkx2-5(+) and Isl1(+) progenitors. These results identify Wt1(+) epicardial cells as previously unrecognized cardiomyocyte progenitors, and lay the foundation for future efforts to harness the cardiogenic potential of these progenitors for cardiac regeneration and repair.
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