ArticleDevelopmental cell2022
Macrophages trigger cardiomyocyte proliferation by increasing epicardial vegfaa expression during larval zebrafish heart regeneration.
Article in Developmental cell, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 47 citations in OpenAlex.
- Role of Macrophages in Cardiac Remodeling: Cues From Zebrafish Heart.Immunity, inflammation and disease · 2026Pooled it
- Article
- Dynamic cardiac hyperplasia and hypertrophy in Burmese pythons.American journal of physiology. Cell physiology · 2026Article
- Signaling pathways regulating cardiac regeneration.Cell regeneration (London, England) · 2026Review
- Flow-mediated endothelial remodeling and inflammation drive developmental vascular susceptibility in ldlr loss of function.Nature communications · 2026Article
- In vivo single-cell RNA metabolic labeling resolves early transcriptional responders in the regenerating zebrafish heart.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Ex vivo imaging reveals neutrophil behaviors in the adult zebrafish heart.Journal of cell science · 2026Article
- Real-time characterisation of microbe-induced inflammation using a novel zebrafish larval corneal injury and infection model.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Neural signaling contributes to heart formation and growth in the invertebrate chordate, Ciona robusta.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Lessons of Macrophage-Associated Heart Regeneration in Fish, Amphibians, and Neonatal Mice, Applied to Adult Mice: A Perspective on α-Gal Nanoparticles.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Primordial cardiomyocytes orchestrate myocardial morphogenesis and vascularization but are dispensable for regeneration.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Inflammation-resolution signalling in cardiac repair, remodelling, and heart failure.European heart journal open · 2025Review
- Advances in Epicardial Biology: Insights from Development, Regeneration, and Human Cardiac Organoids.Journal of cardiovascular development and disease · 2025Review
- Cardiac macrophage: Insights from murine models to translational potential for human studies.Journal of molecular and cellular cardiology · 2025Review
- Cardiomyocyte proliferation: Advances and insights in macrophage-targeted therapy for myocardial injury.Genes & diseases · 2025Review
- Macrophages and cardiac lesion in zebrafish: what can single-cell RNA sequencing reveal?Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2025Review
- Cross-species single-cell RNA-seq analysis reveals disparate and conserved cardiac and extracardiac inflammatory responses upon heart injury.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Engineered macrophages: an "Intelligent Repair" cellular machine for heart injury.Cell regeneration (London, England) · 2024Review
- Heart regeneration from the whole-organism perspective to single-cell resolution.NPJ Regenerative medicine · 2024Review
- Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Cardiac injury leads to the loss of cardiomyocytes, which are rapidly replaced by the proliferation of the surviving cells in zebrafish, but not in mammals. In both the regenerative zebrafish and non-regenerative mammals, cardiac injury induces a sustained macrophage response. Macrophages are required for cardiomyocyte proliferation during zebrafish cardiac regeneration, but the mechanisms whereby macrophages facilitate this crucial process are fundamentally unknown. Using heartbeat-synchronized live imaging, RNA sequencing, and macrophage-null genotypes in the larval zebrafish cardiac injury model, we characterize macrophage function and reveal that these cells activate the epicardium, inducing cardiomyocyte proliferation. Mechanistically, macrophages are specifically recruited to the epicardial-myocardial niche, triggering the expansion of the epicardium, which upregulates vegfaa expression to induce cardiomyocyte proliferation. Our data suggest that epicardial Vegfaa augments a developmental cardiac growth pathway via increased endocardial notch signaling. The identification of this macrophage-dependent mechanism of cardiac regeneration highlights immunomodulation as a potential strategy for enhancing mammalian cardiac repair.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.