Current advances and concepts of Embryological and Genetic basis of the developing human Heart

The current comprehension regarding embryologic and genetic basis of heart has changed with fate mapping and lineage studies of the developing hearts of chicken and mice. Genetic studies with knockout animals give practical insights into developing culture techniques of stem cell derived cardiomyocytes. Intracellular calcium cycling plays a major role in the generation of automaticity in embryonic cardiomyocytes and so could be used to generate stem cell derived spontaneously beating myoblast cells. An in depth theoretical biological framework will go a long way in clarifying many uncertainties and itself can serve as a powerful instrument in the hands of the theoretician as well as the practical researcher. We hereby propose certain theoretical postulates that could throw light on structure, function and development of myocardium. We propose to understand the vertebrate circulatory system as a network of smooth muscle, the centre of which is transformed into cardiac muscle. When increased circulatory load is imposed on the system, smooth muscle underwent some emergent properties that led to the attainment of automaticity. Excitability of the smooth muscle is utilized to the maximum extent in vertebrate circulatory system, but it is now subordinated to cardiac muscle. Smooth muscle too has pacemaker activity but it has undergone a phase transition in the myocardium and has got further stabilized in the form of a structural pacemaker.