Journal article

Transient regenerative potential of the neonatal mouse heart

ER Porrello, AI Mahmoud, E Simpson, JA Hill, JA Richardson, EN Olson, HA Sadek

Science | AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE | Published : 2011

Abstract

Certain fish and amphibians retain a robust capacity for cardiac regeneration throughout life, but the same is not true of the adult mammalian heart. Whether the capacity for cardiac regeneration is absent in mammals or whether it exists and is switched off early after birth has been unclear. We found that the hearts of 1-day-old neonatal mice can regenerate after partial surgical resection, but this capacity is lost by 7 days of age. This regenerative response in 1-day-old mice was characterized by cardiomyocyte proliferation with minimal hypertrophy or fibrosis, thereby distinguishing it from repair processes. Genetic fate mapping indicated that the majority of cardiomyocytes within the re..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute


Funding Acknowledgements

We thank T. Simsek, J. Shelton, and the UT Southwestern Histology Core for help with histology and immunostaining, and J. Cabrera for graphical assistance. Supported by an overseas postdoctoral fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council and National Heart Foundation of Australia (E.R.P.), a cardiovascular research scholar award from Gilead Sciences and a fellow-to-faculty award from the American Heart Association (H.A.S.), and NIH grant HL100401-01, the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Clinical Cardiovascular Research, the American Heart Association, the Jon Holden DeHaan Foundation, the Leducq Foundation, and the Robert A. Welch Foundation (E.N.O.).