Chapter 11 - The Cardiac Neural Crest and Their Role in Development and Disease

Abstract

Neural crest cells (NCC) are a multipotent progenitor cell population that can generate both ectodermal cell types, such as neurons, and mesodermal cell types, such as muscle. The cardiac NCC (cNCC) play key roles in the formation of the cardiac outflow tract (OFT), by which NCC migrate into the embryonic heart and contribute to formation of the pharyngeal arch arteries that subsequently remodel to establish the connections of the dorsal aorta and pulmonary arteries to the left and right ventricles, respectively. The cNCC also contribute to the aortic and pulmonary valves, thereby connecting the heart to the vascular system. This complex process involves cell delamination, migration, fate specification, and ultimately differentiation into the required tissue types. Behind the scenes of these processes are signaling molecules and transcriptional regulators that orchestrate each of these developmental events. In this chapter, we explore what is known regarding the genesis and development of the cNCC.