The opportunities and challenges of using Drosophila to model human cardiac diseases

The heart tube seems simple, yet it has notable anatomic complexity and contains highly specialized structures. In fact, the development of the fly heart tube much resembles that of the earliest stages of mammalian heart development, and the molecular-genetic mechanisms driving these processes are h...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in physiology 2023-04, Vol.14, p.1182610-1182610
Main Authors: Zhao, Yunpo, van de Leemput, Joyce, Han, Zhe
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
cardiac arrhythmia
cardiac conduction
cardiac physiology
congenital heart disease
Drosophila
hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
Physiology
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Summary:The heart tube seems simple, yet it has notable anatomic complexity and contains highly specialized structures. In fact, the development of the fly heart tube much resembles that of the earliest stages of mammalian heart development, and the molecular-genetic mechanisms driving these processes are highly conserved between flies and humans. Combined with the fly's unmatched genetic tools and a wide variety of techniques to assay both structure and function in the living fly heart, these attributes have made a valuable model system for studying human heart development and disease. This perspective focuses on the functional and physiological similarities between fly and human hearts. Further, it discusses current limitations in using the fly, as well as promising prospects to expand the capabilities of as a research model for studying human cardiac diseases.
ISSN:1664-042X
1664-042X
DOI:10.3389/fphys.2023.1182610