Transcribing the heart: faithfully interpreting cardiac transcriptional insights

Regen Med. 2019 Sep;14(9):805-810. doi: 10.2217/rme-2019-0063. Epub 2019 Aug 29.

Abstract

Transcriptional profiling continues to produce phenotypical data essential for understanding of basic cardiac biology and required to improve efficiency of cardiac regenerative and therapeutic approaches after injury. Accurate interpretation of cardiac transcriptional data comes with the unique challenges of heart biology including cardiomyocyte morphology, cryopreservation of limited samples and adequate selection of transcriptional platform at a single-cell resolution. Consequently, development and implementation of novel transcriptional platforms and creative bioinformatic analysis are essential to resolve standing questions in the field of cardiac regenerative medicine. Targeted bioinformatic approaches, advancing technological access, increase technical availability and fostering communication between interdisciplinary groups is critical to improve therapeutic approaches and to overcome challenges inherent to transcriptomic cardiac research.

Keywords: bioinformatics; cardiac; single-cell RNA-Seq; transcriptional profiling; transcriptome.

Publication types

  • Editorial
  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Computational Biology*
  • Gene Expression Profiling*
  • Humans
  • Myocytes, Cardiac*
  • Regenerative Medicine*
  • Transcriptome*