The embryonic heart is particularly sensitive to inappropriate retinoic acid levels, with cardiac outflow tract defects among the most common retinoic acid-induced malformations. In this study Rydeen and Waxman investigate the hearts of zebrafish embryos deficient for the enzymes needed to degrade retinoic acid. The authors show that losing the ability to limit retinoic acid levels results in outflow tract defects via two mechanisms; the embryos fail to add second heart field progenitors to the outflow tract, and disruption of the extracellular environment causes loss of ventricular integrity. The image shows a confocal image stack of the ventricle from a two day-old zebrafish heart (green – cardiomyocytes; red – cadherin 2).
Image Credit: Ariel B. Rydeen
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