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Researchers from UCL and the Francis Crick Institute have used cutting-edge 3D imaging to observe, in unprecedented detail, how heart cells form in a developing mouse embryo. The two-day time-lapse study tracked heart muscle cells every two minutes, revealing that these cells don’t move randomly as once thought – but follow a hidden order from the very start.
“This is the first time we’ve been able to watch heart cells this closely, for this long, during mammalian development,” said Dr Kenzo Ivanovitch of UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. “What we found was totally unexpected.”
Using light-sheet microscopy and fluorescent tagging in an engineered mouse model, the team discovered that as early as four to five hours after initial cell division, some cells began to commit exclusively to forming the heart – emerging in predictable, organised patterns during gastrulation.
Lead author Shayma Abukar, PhD candidate at UCL, added: “We are now working to understand the signals that coordinate this complex choreography of cell movements during early heart development.”
Published in The EMBO Journal, the findings could help advance understanding of congenital heart defects in humans and pave the way for new regenerative techniques, such as lab-grown heart tissue.
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