Epigenetic Regulation of Cardiac Development, Regeneration and Disease

Dear Colleagues,

Congenital heart malformation is one of the leading causes of human birth defects, and cardiac diseases remain the major cause of adult morbidity and mortality both in developed countries and worldwide. Heart is the first organ to form during embryogenesis, and it functions to supply nutrient and oxygen to meet the metabolic demand of the body. After its initial formation at the ventral midline, the vertebrate heart undergoes a series of complex morphogenetic processes that transform the linear heart tube into a four-chambered pumping organ. Defects in these processes can manifest as a variety of congenital structural and/or physiological abnormalities that compromise cardiac function and affect the patient’s well-being. While increase in cardiac mass during development is primarily driven by the addition of differentiated cardiac progenitor cells into the developing heart and subsequent hyperplasia, postnatal cardiac growth in mammals is mainly achieved by hypertrophic growth of the cardiomyocytes, which withdraw from cell cycle and lose their ability to proliferate shortly after birth. The inability of the adult mammalian heart to regenerate and its reliance on reparative fibrotic response render the heart vulnerable to acute and chronic cardiac injuries, which likely contribute to the prevalence of acquired heart disease. Epigenetics refers to regulatory mechanisms that elicit heritable changes in gene expression and function without altering genomic DNA sequence. Epigenetic mechanisms, such as those involving DNA methylation and histone modifications, play fundamental roles in many biological processes. Epigenetic dysregulation can cause perturbed gene expression and thus lead to various congenital and acquired diseases. Given the importance of epigenetic regulation in biology and human disease, in this Special Issue of JCDD, we welcome submissions of original research and review articles as well as case reports with a focus on the epigenetic regulation of cardiac development, regeneration and disease.

Dr. Jiandong Liu
Dr. Sonia Stefanovic
Guest Editors

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• epigenetic regulation
• cardiac development
• cardiac morphogenesis
• cardiac regeneration
• congenital heart disease
• acquired heart disease
• chromatin regulation