BioProject

MHCaCre induced knockout of Fog2flox. Aberrant transcriptional regulation contributes to the pathogenesis of both congenital and adult forms of heart disease. More...

MHCaCre induced knockout of Fog2flox. Aberrant transcriptional regulation contributes to the pathogenesis of both congenital and adult forms of heart disease. While the transcriptional regulator FOG2 is known to be essential for heart morphogenesis and coronary development, its tissue specific function has not been previously investigated. Additionally, little is known about the role of FOG2 in the adult heart. Here we use spatiotemporally regulated inactivation of Fog2 to delineate its function both in embryo and adult heart. Early cardiomyocyte-restricted loss of Fog2 recapitulated the cardiac and coronary defects of the Fog2 germline knockouts. Later cardiomyocyte-restricted loss of Fog2 (Fog2MC) did not result in defects in cardiac structure or coronary vessel formation. However, Fog2MC adult mice had severely depressed ventricular function and died at 8-14 weeks. Fog2MC adult hearts displayed a paucity of coronary vessels. This was associated with myocardial hypoxia, increased cardiomyocyte apoptosis, and cardiac fibrosis. Induced inactivation of Fog2 in adult heart resulted in similar phenotype, as did ablation of FOG2 interaction with the transcription factor GATA4. Loss of FOG2 or FOG2-GATA4 interaction altered expression of a panel of angiogenesis-related genes. Collectively, our data indicated that FOG2 regulates adult heart function and coronary angiogenesis. Overall design: Fog2flox/delta; MHCaCre (3) compared to Fog2flox/delta; no Cre (3). One heart per sample. Less...