An important choreographer of the complicated dance of signals, enzymes and proteins that takes embryonic stem cells through the steps to becoming a beating heart muscle cell is the gene Sox17, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in a report in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. To be precise, Sox17 is critical in transforming primitive mesoderm (an early layer of tissue in the embryo) into the more specialized cardiac mesoderm from which heart muscle develops, said Dr. Michael Schneider, senior researcher of the report. "Heart muscle formation by embryonic stem cells is a complex, multi-step process," said Schneider, professor of medicine, molecular and cellular biology, and molecular physiology and biophysics at Baylor College of Medicine. "We have succeeded in uncoupling the formation of cardiac mesoderm from its antecedent steps. That discovery provides immediate insight into how one might …

Last Modified: Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 @ 05:00

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