Cardiac map

Goal:

Understand the patterning of cardiac progenitors. The embryonic heart grows by the progressive addition of progenitor cells that lie on a epithelial layer called the Dorsal pericardial wall (DPW). T-box transcription genes (Tbx1 and Tbx5) are the main regulator of the addition of the cells to the poles.

Gap in the field:

We do not understand the mechanisms by which the cells decide to contribute to each pole of the heart.

To investigate this we have:

1. Used Unsupervised clustering algorythms to map the cells according to their morphological features.
2. Used Supervised classification algorythms to predict if a cell will express Tbx5 gene.