The importance of fly hearts

The drosophila (fly) had been, and still is, an important model organism in science.

There are developmental similarities between drosophila and vertebrate heart development. From lineage tracing and genetic testing, there are homologues to the drosophila gene found in the human genome responsible for heart development. Since it is relatively easy to view and manage drosophila in the lab. The drosophila could be induced to model a specific cardiac disease and taking into account age-related or nutrition-dependent effects.

During the third instar of drosophila development, the heart is innervated and has its own pacemaker. At this stage the heart can be extracted and utilised to test the physiological conditions.

An interesting paper (Zhou et al. 2009), discovered that cardiomyocyte are derived from epicardial progenitors. The implications of this study suggest it could be utilised in cardiac repair and regeneration.

The next experiment should determine whether the epicardial cells can be induced in foetal mice hearts as a regenerative mechanism or whether the epicardial cells are necessary for cardiomyocyte development.

Review: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3551295/#R181
Primary paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2574791/

Wt1-derived cells differentiate into cardiomyocytes. image obtained from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2574791/