Injury to the newborn mouse heart is efficiently regenerated, but this capacity is lost by one week after birth. We found that IGF2, an important mitogen in heart development, is required for neonatal heart regeneration. IGF2 originates from the endocardium/endothelium and is transduced in cardiomyocytes by the insulin receptor. Following injury on postnatal day 1, absence of IGF2 abolished injury-induced cell cycle entry during the early part of the first postnatal week. Consequently, regeneration failed despite the later presence of additional cell cycle-inducing activities 7 days following injury. Most cardiomyocytes transition from mononuclear diploid to polyploid during the first postnatal week. Regeneration was rescued in Igf2-deficient neonates in three different contexts that elevate the percentage of mononuclear diploid cardiomyocytes beyond postnatal day 7. Thus, IGF2 is a paracrine-acting mitogen for heart regeneration during the early postnatal period, and IGF2-deficiency unmasks the dependence of this process on proliferation-competent mononuclear diploid cardiomyocytes.
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocol 10173 of the University of Southern California and protocols 2018-00642 and 2018-00310 of the Medical University of South Carolina.
© 2020, Shen et al.
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