The lab is primarily interested in early developmental processes leading to normal as well as abnormal vertebrate heart development. Animal models being investigated include both avian (chick and quail) and mouse embryos. Areas investigated specifically include:

• Cell to cell and cell to matrix adhesion-mediated mechanisms regulating embryonic cardiac cell differentiation.
• Morphoregulatory mechanisms underlying embryonic heart looping.
• Growth factor-dependent mechanisms regulating cardiac development.
• Effects of environmental agents on early heart development. Currently investigating homocysteine and lithium.

Recent Publications:

• Linask, Kersti K., Manisastry, S.M., and Han, M.D. 2005. Cross-talk between cell-cell and cell-matrix adhesion signaling pathways during heart organogenesis: A lithium connection and implications for cardiac birth defects. (Invited article). Microscopy and Microanalysis. 11, 200-208.
• Linask, Kersti K.., Han, M.D., Cai, M., Brauer, P. Manisastry, S. 2005. Cardiac Morphogenesis: MMP-2 involvement in cellular mechanisms underlying heart tube formation and looping. Dev. Dyn. 233:739-753.
• Han, M, Trotta, P., Coleman, C. and Linask, Kersti K. 2005. MCT-4, A511/Basigin and EF5 expression patterns during early chick cardiomyogenesis indicate cardiac cell differentiation occurs in a hypoxic environment. Dev. Dyn. In press.

Recent Abstracts Presented:

• Narciso,L., J. Gerhart, J. Perlman, C. Neely, K. Linask, and M. George-Weinstein. 2005. MyoD Positive Cells of the Pregastulating Embryo are Committed to the Skeletal Muscle Lineage. Society for Developmental Biology annual meeting, San Francisco, CA June 2005.
• Manisastry, S.M., Han, M.D., and Linask, K.K. 2005. An anterior-posterior (A/P) progression of chick cardiac anomalies upon early embryonic exposure to lithium, Wnt 3A, and GSK-3 inhibitor: Effects on Notch, Dkk1 and Axin expression. Weinstein Meeting. Tucson, AZ.
• Manisastry, S.M., Han, M.D., and Linask, K.K. 2005. Effects of lithium exposure on early mouse embryonic heart development: An echocardiographic and pathological study. Weinstein Meeting. Tuscon, AZ.
• Han, M.D., D.H.Cai, P.R. Brauer, and K.K. Linask. 2005. MMP Inhibition leads to defects in cardiac tube development and randomization of heart looping by effects on cell proliferation in the L/R dorsal mesocardial folds. Weinstein Meeting, Tuscon, AZ.

• Kersti K. Linask, Ph.D., Mason Professor
• Shyam Manisastry, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow
• Jizen Chen, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow
• Mingda Han, MD, Research Associate
• Wenge Lu, MD, Research Associate
• Maria Serrano, MD, Research Associate
• Patrizia Trotta, Pre-med student
• Melissa Salazar, Administrative Assistant