Bioelectric signaling and the control of cardiac cell identity in response to mechanical forces

Making cardiac valves via mechanical forces Cardiac valves form in response to mechanical forces generated by the beating heart. Fukui et al . studied how patterning signals are generated in response to these forces (see the Perspective by Jain and Epstein). They show that two mechanotransduction pathways act in parallel to instruct cardiac valve progenitors: a well-established transient receptor potential mechanosensation pathway and an extracellular ATP-dependent purinergic receptor pathway that triggers Ca 2+ oscillations and results in nuclear translocation of the protein nuclear factor of activated T cells 1. These two synergistic mechanotransduction pathways generate positional information and control valve formation. The use of multiple pathways may be a general mechanism used by mechanosensitive biological systems to increase the robustness and precision of mechanotransduction. —BAP