A Heart of Stone: Cardiac Fibroblasts Turn to Bone in Calcified Hearts.
The identity of the cells and molecular events driving deleterious calcification of heart muscle remains elusive. In this issue of Cell Stem Cell, Pillai et al. (2017) report that cardiac fibroblasts respond to injury by adopting an osteogenic cell fate and creating damaging calcific deposits, which can be prevented by inhibiting the activated mineralization process.
Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Francisco, and Tenaya Therapeutics, 1650 Owens Street, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA. Electronic address: kivey@tenayathera.com.
Kathryn N
KN
Ivey
D001842:Bone and Bones; D002114:Calcinosis; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D005347:Fibroblasts; D006801:Humans; D010012:Osteogenesis