Journal of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery

The molecular mechanisms underlying spatiotemporal regulation of transcription during the cardiac development remain to be fully understood. The association of huge number of modifier genes, contribution of multiple cell types and progenitors, and complex form of 3D-structural morphology needs to be clarified. The intense investigations of cardiogenesis using in vivo models have revealed a cluster of transcription factors which have essential roles for cardiac development including GATA family of zinc finger proteins, GATA4, 5, and 6; T-box factors, including Tbx1, Tbx2, Tbx3, Tbx5, Tbx18, and Tbx20; the homeodomain protein Nkx2.5; MEF2 factors; the Hand family of bHLH transcription factors, dHand and eHand; and the Lim-homeodomain protein Isl1. These essential cardiac transcription factors interact each other and form the complex core transcriptional circuit to regulate the framework of cardiac development to establish the basic morphology of the heart. In this review, we focus on GATA and T-box transcription factors as the hotspot pathogenesis of congenital heart diseases with developmental background obtained from transgenic animal studies.