The adult human heart does not regenerate significant amounts of lost tissue after injury. Rather than making new, functional muscle, human hearts are prone to scarring and hypertrophy, which can often lead to fatal arrhythmias and heart failure. The most-cited basis of this ineffective cardiac regeneration in mammals is the low proliferative capacity of adult cardiomyocytes. However, mammalian cardiomyocytes can avidly proliferate during fetal and neonatal development, and both adult zebrafish and neonatal mice can regenerate cardiac muscle after injury, suggesting that latent regenerative potential exists. Dissecting the cellular and molecular mechanisms that promote cardiomyocyte proliferation throughout life, deciphering why proliferative capacity normally dissipates in adult mammals, and deriving means to boost this capacity are primary goals in cardiovascular research. Here, we review our current understanding of how cardiomyocyte proliferation is regulated during heart development and regeneration.

Highlights d Regenerating coronaries respond by sprouting superficially and intra-ventricularly d Superficial revascularization is regulated by epicardial Cxcl12/Cxcr4 signaling d Intra-ventricular revascularization is regulated by endocardial Vegfa signaling d Regenerating coronaries provide a scaffold available for cardiomyocyte repopulation

SUMMARY Chromatin regulation is a principal mechanism governing animal development, yet it is unclear to what extent structural changes in chromatin underlie tissue regeneration. Non-mammalian vertebrates like zebrafish activate cardiomyocyte (CM) division after tissue damage to regenerate lost heart muscle. Here, we generated transgenic zebrafish expressing a biotinylatable H3.3 histone variant in CMs and derived cell type-specific profiles of histone replacement. We identified an emerging program of putative enhancers that revise H3.3 occupancy during regeneration, overlaid upon a genome-wide reduction of H3.3 from promoters. In transgenic reporter lines, H3.3-enriched elements directed gene expression in subpopulations of CMs. Other elements increased H3.3 enrichment and displayed enhancer activity in settings of injury- and/or Neuregulin1-elicited CM proliferation. Dozens of consensus sequence motifs containing predicted transcription factor binding sites were enriched in genomic regions with regeneration-responsive H3.3 occupancy. Thus, cell-type specific regulatory programs of tissue regeneration can be revealed by genome-wide H3.3 profiling.