The difference between men and women in heart disease may begin before birth

There are differences between men and women in the prevalence, treatment response and survival rates of various diseases

The study, published in the journal "Development Cell", showed that the difference in protein expression between men and women occurs immediately after embryonic cells become cardiomyocytes

This comprehensive report is the first detailed mechanism of gender differences in the heart at such an early stage, providing new opportunities for the research and treatment of heart diseases, as well as the advancement of biological research on gender differences in this emerging field

"Our research shows that the gender bias in heart development precedes the major gender determination and may be related to the gender bias in congenital heart disease," said the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

This research is a collaboration between the Conron Laboratory at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and senior co-author Dr.

This health difference between men and women has long been well known, and in 2016, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute released the report of the Working Group on Gender Differences in Cardiovascular Diseases

Co-first author Dr.

Conlon's team then defined the cell types that express a subset of these proteins to show differences in expression in the male and female cardiac cardiomyocyte lineages

"Contrary to the current paradigm, we found that the sex difference in the heart of men and women is not only controlled by hormones, but also through a hormone-independent sex chromosome mechanism," said Conlon, who is also the University of North Carolina McAllister Member of the Heart Institute

Understanding the basic biological principles of cardiac development at this very early stage provides important information for stem cell biologists interested in using cardiac progenitor cells to regenerate cardiac tissue and other cardiac replacement therapies

DOI

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Article title

Cardiac proteomics reveals sex chromosome-dependent differences between males and females that arise prior to gonad formation