loft ventricle RNAseq

Cardiac looping and trabeculation are key processes during cardiac chamber maturation and alteration of these processes frequently causes congenital heart defects. Here, we report the isolation, cloning, and characterization of the proprotein convertase furina from the cardiovascular mutant loft in zebrafish, and thus establish its critical role in heart looping and trabecular development. Although heart defects are previously reported in zebrafish and mouse furin mutants, it remains unclear what are the targets of Furin in the heart. This work presents a new layer of post-translational modulation of Notch1b proteins by Furina during zebrafish cardiac looping and trabeculation, and mutations in the Furina-Notch1b axis may shed light on the genetic basis of congenital heart diseases in humans.