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Myosin-based contraction is not necessary for cardiac c-looping in the chick embryo

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Abstract

During the initial phase of cardiac looping, known as c-looping, the heart bends and twists into a c-shaped tube with the convex outer curvature normally directed toward the right side of the embryo. Despite intensive study for more than 80 years, the biophysical mechanisms that drive and regulate looping remain poorly understood, although some investigators have speculated that differential cytoskeletal contraction supplies the driving force for c-looping. The purpose of this investigation was to test this hypothesis. To inhibit contraction, embryonic chick hearts at stages 10–12 (10–16 somites, 33–48 h) were exposed to the myosin inhibitors 2,3-butanedione monoxime (BDM), ML-7, Y-27632, and blebbistatin. Experiments were conducted in both whole embryo culture and, to focus on bending alone, isolated heart culture. Measurements of heart stiffness and phosphorylation of the myosin regulatory light chains showed that BDM, Y-27632, and blebbistatin significantly reduced myocardial contractility, while ML-7 had a lesser effect. None of these drugs significantly affected looping during the studied stages. These results suggest that active contraction is not required for normal c-looping of the embryonic chick heart between stages 10 and 12.

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Notes

  1. Voronov et al. (2004) have shown that a relatively small amount of dextral bending also occurs, but torsion is the main determinant of left–right looping directionality.

  2. Specified stages correspond to the time at which culture began.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank William B. McConnaughey, Kenneth M. Pryse, and Tetsuro Wakatsuki for their help and advice with the indentation experiments. This work was supported by NIH grant R01 HL64347 (LAT).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University, Campus Box 1097, St Louis, MO, 63130, USA

    Mathieu C. Rémond & Larry A. Taber

  2. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, 63110, USA

    Judy A. Fee & Elliot L. Elson

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  1. Mathieu C. Rémond
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  2. Judy A. Fee
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  3. Elliot L. Elson
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  4. Larry A. Taber
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Correspondence to Larry A. Taber.

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Rémond, M.C., Fee, J.A., Elson, E.L. et al. Myosin-based contraction is not necessary for cardiac c-looping in the chick embryo. Anat Embryol 211, 443–454 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-006-0094-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-006-0094-0

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