Contributions to the Research & Society
My laboratory originally showed that heart valves form
from the cells that line the early heart in response to
a local signal from the muscle. We have continued to explore
this process and we have identified several molecules that
regulate this process. We found that exposure of valve-forming
endothelial cells to TCE blocks a key process of cell shape
change but cells that had already undergone the change
in shape were comparatively less affected by the exposure.
This argues that an early step in heart valve formation
is likely to be responsible for some of the birth defects
associated with exposure to TCE.
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