VGLL4 plays a critical role in heart valve development and homeostasis

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1007977
• Publication Date: 2019-02-21T18:51:13Z
• Authors: Wei Yu; Xueyan Ma; Jinjin Xu; Andreas Wilhelm H...; Zhaoliang Fei; Xue Feng; Xiaodong Wang; Kuo Liu; Jinhui Li; Guizhong Cui; Guangdun Peng; Hongbin Ji; Jinsong Li; Naihe Jing; Hai Song; Zhiqiang Lin; Yun Zhao; Zuoyun Wang; Bin Zhou; Lei Zhang
• Keywords: Homeostasis; Heart development; Hippo signaling pathway

Heart valve disease is a major clinical problem worldwide. Cardiac development and homeostasis need to be precisely controlled. Hippo signaling essential for organ tissue homeostasis, while its role in formation morphology maintenance remains unknown. VGLL4 transcription cofactor vertebrates we found it was mainly expressed interstitial cells at the post-EMT stage maintained till adult stage. Tissue specific knockout of different cell lineages revealed that only loss endothelial lineage led malformation with expanded expression YAP targets. We further semi-knockout ablated hearts, hyper proliferation arterial significantly constrained. These findings suggest important manipulation components would potential therapy preventing progression congenital disease.