Research Subject:
Development of cardiovascular system
Principal Investigator:
Prof. Zhongzhou YANG
zhongzhouyang@nju.edu.cn
Research Content & Progress:
Cardiovascular system is the first to be developed and to function, which provides nutrients and oxygen to support the development and growth of all the other organs. Mammalian heart development can be divided into four stages: 1) cardiac specification; 2) heart tube formation; 3)looping and asymmetric de-velopment and 4) chamber growth. This project is aimed to elucidate the regulatory mechanisms in heart development with hope to discover novel signaling pathways and novel genes using mice as models.
Major achievements include: Discovery of TGFbeta-regulatory microRNAs that are involved in cardiac remodeling; gaining of novel insights into VEGFR3 signaling in vascular and lymphatic development and regulation; investigation of cardiovascular development in knockout mice of the key genes in IGF1-PI3K-PDK1-PTEN/PP2A-Akt signaling pathway reveals severe cardiovascular defects and pathological heart remodeling and uncovers possible downstream transcription factors. These results indicates essential roles of this signaling pathway in cardiovascular system; discovery of downstream targets of AP2 such as KCTD10. Deletion of KCTD10 in mice causes embryonic lethal with cardiovascular defects.
