Extracellular matrix and heart development

Vascular extracellular matrix and aortic development.

Extracellular matrix remodeling in hypertensive heart disease.

everal decades ago, the severity of heart failure was gauged ccording to a depression in myocardial contractility, dened as that biochemical property of cardiac muscle that etermines the extent of shortening independent of its nitial length and the load against which it shortens. athematical models were used to derive indices of conractility (1). These theoretical constructs included a conracti...

Extracellular Matrix Dynamics in Early Development

The extracellular matrix (ECM) is an inherently dynamic structure during development. Large-scale tissue movements sweep the ECM to distant positions during early embryogenesis; furthermore, the previously assembled ECM filaments are extensively reused during later organogenesis. Thus, some organs, such as the heart, inherit previously assembled ECM filaments. This review focuses on the macro-a...

Editorial: Brain Extracellular Space: Geometry, Matrix and Physiological Importance

Extracellular matrix, mechanotransduction and structural hierarchies in heart tissue engineering.

The spatial and temporal scales of cardiac organogenesis and pathogenesis make engineering of artificial heart tissue a daunting challenge. The temporal scales range from nanosecond conformational changes responsible for ion channel opening to fibrillation which occurs over seconds and can lead to death. Spatial scales range from nanometre pore sizes in membrane channels and gap junctions to th...