title: Coronary Artery Development: Progenitor Cells and Differentiation Pathways.
abstract: Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the number one cause of death worldwide and involves the accumulation of plaques within the artery wall that can occlude blood flow to the heart and cause myocardial infarction. The high mortality associated with CAD makes the development of medical interventions that repair and replace diseased arteries a high priority for the cardiovascular research community. Advancements in arterial regenerative medicine could benefit from a detailed understanding of coronary artery development during embryogenesis and of how these pathways might be reignited during disease. Recent research has advanced our knowledge on how the coronary vasculature is built and revealed unexpected features of progenitor cell deployment that may have implications for organogenesis in general. Here, we highlight these recent findings and discuss how they set the stage to interrogate developmental pathways during injury and disease.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305; email: kredhors@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Bikram
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305; email: kredhors@stanford.edu.|Department of Developmental Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305; email: kredhors@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Kristy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Red-Horse
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000502:physiology*; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000473:pathology*; D003331:Coronary Vessels / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000502:physiology*; D006321:Heart / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D038081:Organogenesis / Q000502:physiology*; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: blood flow; coronary artery; endocardium; sinus venosus; vascular remodeling