Endoderm Nitric Oxide Signals to Regulate Nascent Development of Cardiac Progenitors in Chicken Embryos

Heart development in the chicken embryo is regulated by a concert of cardiogenic morphogens and signaling molecules, but the physiological signal molecule nitric oxide(NO) has not been studied in the context of heart formation. A dynamic investigation of endoderm NO formation demonstrates for the first time a correlation with the established development events of the cardiac heart fields and heart tube. Manipulation of endoderm NO signaling demonstrate a role of NO signaling in the differentiation and proliferation of cardiac progenitors for heart tube formation and cardiac heart field development. To investigate NO in the proliferation of myocardial cells in the heart tube embryos, a computer vision based artificial intelligence approach is followed to automate the long and tedious job of counting cells in a large image dataset. We document NO as an important signaling molecule in the regulation of nascent embryonic cardiogenesis whose effects on other early cardiogenic morphogens is unknown.