In summary, biglycan plays important roles in the musculoskeletal system. The fact that non-glycanated forms of biglycan are effective in ameliorating muscle defects and that it can be administered systemically makes it particularly amenable for tissue and cell therapy. Taken together, it is reasonable to conclude that biglycan holds promise as a novel therapeutic for numerous musculoskeletal diseases including low bone mass, osteoarthritis, ectopic bone formation and muscular dystrophy. The experiments described in this commentary were supported partly by the Division of Intramural Research, NIDCR of the Intramural Research Program, NIH,

DHHS. “
“Human development, like that learn more of other mammals, is critically dependent on the formation and function of the embryonic heart. Forming between 3 and 8 weeks of gestation, the heart supports

subsequent growth of the foetus and it is perhaps not surprising that disruption of either heart development or function are believed to account for up to 10% of all miscarriages. Indeed, even amongst live births, anomalies of the heart are still detected in approximately 1% of babies and their management constitutes a significant medical burden. Heart development itself is an exquisitely complex process involving the transformation of a simple, tubular Depsipeptide peristaltic pump into a mature, multi-chambered organ, capable of supporting separate systemic and pulmonary circulation upon birth. Understanding the complex interplay of growth, differentiation and tissue interactions and their underlying genetic programmes that drive formation of this organ is an enormous challenge for developmental biologists, but is essential if we are to unravel the environmental and genetic influences that result in congenital heart disease. Animal models provide the opportunity both to examine normal heart development

PLEKHM2 in a range of vertebrate embryos and to test the effect of experimental perturbation on heart morphogenesis or function. Structurally more similar to the human heart than that of avian or amphibian species, the mouse heart is most commonly used for studying cardiogenesis. Indeed, the past decade has witnessed a dramatic increase in our understanding of mouse heart development, driven primarily by the use of genetic manipulation. Not only has this facilitated study of the role played by individual genes in heart formation (revealing profound similarities in gene function between human and mouse counterparts), it has also provided the means to reliably distinguish the contribution of distinct cell lineages to the developing heart. As a result, the limiting factor is perhaps no longer the difficulty in establishing methods to perturb heart development; rather it is the challenge of integrating the burgeoning data from diverse studies of gene expression, cell lineage, proliferation and tissue architecture.