# Mechanisms of Posterior Heart Field Development

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · 2023 · $512,189

## Abstract

Project Summary:
The heart consists of a multitude of diverse cardiac cell types, including but not limited to (chambered and non-
chambered) cardiomyocytes, cardiac fibroblasts, epicardial cells, endothelial/endocardial cells and smooth
muscle cells, which organize into distinct cardiac structures that coordinately regulate proper cardiac function
and circulation throughout the body. Because loss or dysfunction of these cell types individually or
combinatorially can lead to either adult or congenital heart diseases, increasing efforts have been recently
devoted toward understanding how these diverse cardiovascular cell-types are created and function in order to
develop potential human cardiac therapies. Such endeavors have illuminated not only the origins of many
cardiac lineages but also key signaling cues and transcriptional regulators which in turn have been recently
employed to efficiently direct various non-cardiac sources including human pluripotent stem cells and human
fibroblasts into specific cardiac cell types for regenerative therapies. However, how cardiac cell types forming
the cardiac inflow tract and the developmentally-related epicardium develop remains less certain in part due to
their unclear origins. To shed light on these issues, we propose to discover the origins of these unique cardiac
cell-types, which we posit derive from a common cardiac progenitor source, and then identify underlying
signaling mechanisms that regulate their development. Toward this end, we will examine whether outlying
Nkx2.5+ cardiac mesoderm is fated to become cardiac inflow tract cardiomyocytes and epicardial cells, identify
signaling pathways that specify cardiac mesoderm into cardiac progenitors which create the cardiac inflow tract
myocardium and epicardium and investigate whether these developmental mechanisms are conserved across
vertebrates.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10669667
- **Project number:** 5R01HL152721-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
- **Principal Investigator:** Neil C Chi
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $512,189
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-08-01 → 2024-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10669667

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10669667, Mechanisms of Posterior Heart Field Development (5R01HL152721-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10669667. Licensed CC0.

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