Cells in the future right ventricle grow in an oriented pattern resembling the final shape of the ventricle.
The heart is formed during embryogenesis from a simple tube-like structure. As it grows, the tube morphs into the complicated but familiar shape of our four-chambered heart. How one set of cells in the tube expands to acquire the shape of a ventricle while others become the atrium, for example, is unclear. Recently, oriented cell growth was shown to be the main factor in shaping the fly wing and the petals of the Antirrhinum flower. Meilhac et al. now find that directed growth patterns similarly affect the shaping of the heart.
Using clonal analyses of embryonic cardiac cells, the authors were able to trace the...
