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XB-ART-58534
Elife 2021 Oct 13;10. doi: 10.7554/eLife.69288.
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Tbx5 drives Aldh1a2 expression to regulate a RA-Hedgehog-Wnt gene regulatory network coordinating cardiopulmonary development.

Rankin SA , Steimle JD , Yang XH , Rydeen AB , Agarwal K , Chaturvedi P , Ikegami K , Herriges MJ , Moskowitz IP , Zorn AM .


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The gene regulatory networks that coordinate the development of the cardiac and pulmonary systems are essential for terrestrial life but poorly understood. The T-box transcription factor Tbx5 is critical for both pulmonary specification and heart development, but how these activities are mechanistically integrated remains unclear. Here using Xenopus and mouse embryos, we establish molecular links between Tbx5 and retinoic acid (RA) signaling in the mesoderm and between RA signaling and sonic hedgehog expression in the endoderm to unveil a conserved RA-Hedgehog-Wnt signaling cascade coordinating cardiopulmonary (CP) development. We demonstrate that Tbx5 directly maintains expression of aldh1a2, the RA-synthesizing enzyme, in the foregut lateral plate mesoderm via an evolutionarily conserved intronic enhancer. Tbx5 promotes posterior second heart field identity in a positive feedback loop with RA, antagonizing a Fgf8-Cyp regulatory module to restrict FGF activity to the anterior. We find that Tbx5/Aldh1a2-dependent RA signaling directly activates shh transcription in the adjacent foregut endoderm through a conserved MACS1 enhancer. Hedgehog signaling coordinates with Tbx5 in the mesoderm to activate expression of wnt2/2b, which induces pulmonary fate in the foregut endoderm. These results provide mechanistic insight into the interrelationship between heart and lung development informing CP evolution and birth defects.

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Species referenced: Xenopus laevis
Genes referenced: acvr2a aldh1a2 atf3 bgn col1a2 col3a1 eng fgf10 fgf8 gdf10 gdf6 junb ltbp3 pcsk5 pcsk6 serpine1 shh smad7 sparc tbx5 tgfb1 tgfb1i1 tgfbr2 tgfbr3 timp3

References [+] :
Aggarwal, Dissection of Tbx1 and Fgf interactions in mouse models of 22q11DS suggests functional redundancy. 2006, Pubmed