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Regenerative biology

Neuregulin 1 makes heart muscle

Nature volume 520, pages 445–446 (2015)Cite this article

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Three studies reveal that augmentation of a signalling pathway involving the growth factor neuregulin 1 and its receptor protein ERBB2 can promote the generation of muscle cells in zebrafish, mice and infant heart tissue.

Whether mature heart-muscle cells called cardiomyocytes can proliferate to make new muscle has been an area of contention for many years. The debate has implications for the treatment of cardiovascular disease, because the loss of cardiomyocytes can lead to heart failure and death. Mammalian cardiomyocytes were thought to stop proliferating in the first few days after birth1. However, evidence has emerged to suggest that adult mouse and human cardiomyocytes do proliferate, albeit in very small numbers2,3. Now, three studies (published in eLIFE4, Nature Cell Biology5 and Science Translational Medicine6) report that the growth factor neuregulin 1 (Nrg1) promotes heart regeneration in zebrafish, and cardiomyocyte proliferation in mammalian hearts.

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Figure 1: Mending a broken heart.

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  1. Katherine E. Yutzey is in the Division of Molecular Cardiovascular Biology, Cincinnati Children's Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio 45229, USA.,

    Katherine E. Yutzey

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  1. Katherine E. Yutzey
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Correspondence to Katherine E. Yutzey.

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Yutzey, K. Neuregulin 1 makes heart muscle. Nature 520, 445–446 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/520445a

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