Key result
Epicardial EMT drives cardiac repair and offers promising therapeutic strategies for heart disease.
Redirecting and amplifying epicardial EMT pathways offers promising avenues for the development of innovative therapeutic strategies for heart disease and cardiac repair.
Hypothesis-generating for EMT-targeted cardiac repair; prospective trials needed before clinical adoption.
Epicardial epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) plays a pivotal role in both heart development and injury response and involves dynamic cellular changes that are essential for cardiogenesis and myocardial repair. Specifically, epicardial EMT is a crucial process in which epicardial cells lose polarity, migrate into the myocardium, and differentiate into various cardiac cell types during development and repair. Importantly, following EMT, the epicardium becomes a source of paracrine factors that support cardiac growth at the last stages of cardiogenesis and contribute to cardiac remodeling after injury. As such, EMT seems to represent a fundamental step in cardiac repair. Nevertheless, endogenous EMT alone is insufficient to stimulate adequate repair. Redirecting and amplifying epicardial EMT pathways offers promising avenues for the development of innovative therapeutic strategies and treatment approaches for heart disease. In this review, we present a synthesis of recent literature highlighting the significance of epicardial EMT reactivation in adult heart disease patients.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Foglio et al. (2024) conducted a review in Heart disease. Epicardial EMT reactivation was evaluated. Epicardial epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) plays a pivotal role in cardiac development and repair, and redirecting these pathways offers promising therapeutic strategies for heart disease.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: