title: ErbB2 is required for cardiomyocyte proliferation in murine neonatal hearts.
abstract: It has been long recognized that the mammalian heart loses its proliferative capacity soon after birth, yet, the molecular basis of this loss of cardiac proliferation postnatally is largely unknown. In this study, we found that cardiac ErbB2, a member of the epidermal growth factor receptor family, exhibits a rapid and dramatic decline in expression at the neonatal stage. We further demonstrate that conditional ablation of ErbB2 in the ventricular myocardium results in upregulation of negative cell cycle regulators and a significant reduction in cardiomyocyte proliferation during the narrow neonatal proliferative time window. Together, our data reveal a positive correlation between the expression levels of ErbB2 with neonatal cardiomyocyte proliferation and suggest that reduction in cardiac ErbB2 expression may contribute to the loss of postnatal cardiomyocyte proliferative capacity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, McAllister Heart Institute, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, McAllister Heart Institute, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA.
authors.forename: Chaoying
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, McAllister Heart Institute, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA.
authors.forename: Yingao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, McAllister Heart Institute, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, McAllister Heart Institute, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. Electronic address: jiandong_liu@med.unc.edu.
authors.forename: Jiandong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018797:Cell Cycle Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D006321:Heart / Q000254:growth & development*; D051379:Mice; D032383:Myocytes, Cardiac / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D018797:Cell Cycle Proteins; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; C524056:Erbb2 protein, mouse
keywords: Cardiomyocyte; ErbB2; Neonatal; Proliferation