Differentiation of Pluripotent Stem Cells for Disease Modeling: Learning from Heart Development

Abstract

Heart disease is a pressing public health problem and the leading cause of death worldwide. The heart is the first organ to gain function during embryogenesis in mammals. Heart development involves cell determination, expansion, migration, and crosstalk, which are orchestrated by numerous signaling pathways, such as the Wnt, TGF-β, IGF, and Retinoic acid signaling pathways. Human-induced pluripotent stem cell-based platforms are emerging as promising approaches for modeling heart disease in vitro. Understanding the signaling pathways that are essential for cardiac development has shed light on the molecular mechanisms of congenital heart defects and postnatal heart diseases, significantly advancing stem cell-based platforms to model heart diseases. This review summarizes signaling pathways that are crucial for heart development and discusses how these findings improve the strategies for modeling human heart disease in vitro.