Significance: Stimulated emission depletion (STED) is a powerful super-resolution microscopy technique that can be used for imaging live cells. However, the high STED laser powers can cause significant photobleaching and sample damage in sensitive biological samples. The dynamic intensity minimum (DyMIN) technique turns on the STED laser only in regions of the sample where there is fluorescence signal, thus saving significant sample photobleaching.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSmyd1/Bop is an evolutionary conserved histone methyltransferase previously shown by conventional knockout to be critical for embryonic heart development. To further explore the mechanism(s) in a cell autonomous context, we conditionally ablated Smyd1 in the first and second heart fields of mice using a knock-in (KI) Nkx2.5-cre driver.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCardiac and skeletal muscle development and maintenance require complex interactions between DNA-binding proteins and chromatin remodeling factors. We previously reported that Smyd1, a muscle-restricted histone methyltransferase, is essential for cardiogenesis and functions with a network of cardiac regulatory proteins. Here we show that the muscle-specific transcription factor skNAC is the major binding partner for Smyd1 in the developing heart.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRhythmic cardiac contractions depend on the organized propagation of depolarizing and repolarizing wavefronts. Repolarization is spatially heterogeneous and depends largely on gradients of potassium currents. Gradient disruption in heart disease may underlie susceptibility to fatal arrhythmias, but it is not known how this gradient is established.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMany transcription factors regulate specific temporal-spatial events during cardiac differentiation; however, the mechanisms that regulate such events are largely unknown. Using a modified subtractive hybridization method to identify specific genes that influence early cardiac development, we found that Bop is expressed specifically in cardiac and skeletal muscle precursors before differentiation of these lineages. Bop encodes a protein containing MYND and SET domains, which have been shown to regulate transcription by mediating distinct chromatin modifications.
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