The moment when a heart begins to form in extraordinary timelapse images for the first time.
The images show how heart cells in a musembryo spontaneously organize itself into a heart -like form early in development. The researchers believe that technology can provide new insights into congenital heart defects, which affect close to 2000 children per year in Sweden.
– This is a fantastic progress. Now you may explain and prevent some congenital heart failure from occurring, says Linda Sundberg, Secretary -General Hjärtbarnsfonden.
The researchers are satisfied with the results.
“This is the first time we have been able to follow cardiac cells so closely for so long in a mammal’s development,” says the study’s lead author Dr. Kenzo Ivanovitch at the University College London’s Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health.
“We first had to grow the embryos in bowls during periods from a few hours to several days, and the result was completely unexpected.”
The images were taken with advanced light-sheet microscopy and made it possible to follow the embryo through the gastula, as it forms different cell lines and basic body shafts. Shortly thereafter, the heart muscle cells organize into a large tube that later divides into the walls and chambers that become the heart. In congenital heart defects, holes may occur during this process.
With fluorescent markers, heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) were colored so that they shone in different colors. Every two minutes, pictures were taken with a hugely long shutter speed, which showed how the cells moved, shared and formed a primitive organ. The researchers could then see when and were the first heart -forming cells showed up.
They discovered that already at the beginning of the gastulation (about six days into the development of the mouse bridge), cells that only contribute to the heart appeared, and that they followed very organized courses, whether they would form the chamber of the heart or atrium.
“Our results show that the precursor and targeted cell movement of the heart is regulated much earlier than current models,” says Ivanovitch. This changes our understanding of heart development by showing that what seems to be chaotic cell migration is in fact controlled by hidden patterns that ensure proper heart formation.
The team believes that the insights can improve the understanding and treatment of congenital heart defects and accelerate the work of growing heart tissue in lab for regenerative medicine. The study was published in the Embo Journal.
https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1038/s44318-025-00441-0
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