According to an article in Science Daily, Scientists at the Gladstone institute have been studying a certain aspect of fetal heart development that may give a new insight to the understanding of Congenital Heart Disease. The gene Ezh2 has been found to act as a regulator of another important gene in fetal heart development, Six1. Without Ezh2 present, as tested in mice, the Six1 gene remains on increasing the activity of other genes that should not be active. In the study this caused the hearts of the mice to become enlarged and weakened after birth inhibiting the heart from working properly. An article on the Ezh2 gene in Nature Genetics also confirms the role of the Ezh2 gene in fetal heart development and Six1 regulation. After reading the two articles I agree that knowledge of the Ezh2 gene in the role of fetal heart development can contribute to a better understanding of congenital heart disease.
Your post made me want to further looking into congenital heart disease. I had no idea what is was and after researching it I am glad to know that someone is trying to find what causes this disease. I hope that through this research someone will one day find how to prevent this awful disease that affects 8-10 out of 1000 people (including babies).
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