Keeping up with the Tbx transcription factors
Last semester I worked on a paper regarding the role of Fgf8 in cardiovascular development of mice. The Fgf8 in association with the Tbx1 gene seemed to have an important role in embryonic development. More so, the inactivation of the Tbx1 sequence is mostly responsible for what is known as the DiGeorge Syndrome.
Despite the specific details of this paper, the main purpose of our work was to learn about conditional knockouts and how to produce viable mice with certain inactivated genes, so as to infer their function.
So, today I popped by PLoS ONE for a glimpse of the latest articles and found a recent study involving Tbx’s, but this time Tbx2 and Tbx3. So I gave it a look-see.
Well, as it seems, they too are related to the heart development and remodeling.
The researchers, used similar techniques such as those I already studied, like gene knockouts and GFP to visualize the effects of these transcription factors in heart development, remodeling and cell proliferation.
The research results lead to some good findings regarding these two transcription factors as stated in the paper:
“Taken together, our results uncover an evolutionarily conserved role of Tbx2/3 transcription factors during remodeling of the heart myocardium and highlight the importance of controlling cell proliferation as a driving force of morphogenesis.”
Another thing that just happened to catch my eye was the fact that some of these researchers are either Portuguese and also that some of the funding came from Portuguese foundations and/or institutes. Cool coincidence.
Find it at PLoS One: Tbx2 and Tbx3 Regulate the Dynamics of Cell Proliferation during Heart Remodeling
[Image: Zebrafish, the model organism the researches worked with other than mice.]
Related posts:
[...] My Biotech Life presents a gene called Tbx1 whose inactivation leads to DiGeorge syndrome, a rare congenital disease. He also describes Tbx2/3 transcription factors and their role in embryonic development. [...]
[...] My Biotech Life presents a gene called Tbx1 whose inactivation leads to DiGeorge syndrome, a rare congenital disease. He also describes Tbx2/3 transcription factors and their role in embryonic development. [...]
[...] My Biotech Life presents a gene called Tbx1 whose inactivation leads to DiGeorge syndrome, a rare congenital disease. He also describes Tbx2/3 transcription factors and their role in embryonic development. [...]