MHI Seminar Series presents Jinhu Wang, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Division of Cardiology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA

Summary of Seminar:  Humans, like all mammals, possess limited natural ability to efficiently replace lost myocardium with new contractile tissue. This deficiency contributes to heart failure, the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. By contrast, teleost fish robustly restore lost cardiac tissues after heart damage. Heart regeneration in its natural context builds muscle by proliferation of existing cardiomyocytes (CMs), facilitated by influences of non-muscle cells like the epicardium, which is a mesothelial layer that envelops outer surface of the heart and has important contributions to cardiac repair. However, the epicardium itself is a heterogeneous tissue, and which subpopulations offer benefits to regeneration events is far from clear. Our study reveals that a particular subset of epicardial cells with hapln1a expression has the strongest association with regeneration, as these cells surround and support proliferating cardiomyocytes, and pre-lead and guide coronary growth during heart morphogenesis and regeneration.