Highlights d Chamber-like cardioids form a cavity and recapitulate heart lineage architecture d Cardioid self-organization and lineage identity is instructed by signaling d WNT-BMP signaling directs cavity formation via HAND1 d Cryoinjury initiates an in vivo-like fibronectin and collagen accumulation

IntroductionNematostella vectensis, a member of the cnidarian class Anthozoa, has been established as a promising model system in developmental biology, but while information about the genetic regulation of embryonic development is rapidly increasing, little is known about the cellular organization of the various cell types in the adult. Here, we studied the anatomy and development of the muscular system of N. vectensis to obtain further insights into the evolution of muscle cells.ResultsThe muscular system of N. vectensis is comprised of five distinct muscle groups, which are differentiated into a tentacle and a body column system. Both systems house longitudinal as well as circular portions. With the exception of the ectodermal tentacle longitudinal muscle, all muscle groups are of endodermal origin. The shape and epithelial organization of muscle cells vary considerably between different muscle groups. Ring muscle cells are formed as epitheliomuscular cells in which the myofilaments are housed in the basal part of the cell, while the apical part is connected to neighboring cells by apical cell-cell junctions. In the longitudinal muscles of the column, the muscular part at the basal side is connected to the apical part by a long and narrow cytoplasmic bridge. The organization of these cells, however, remains epitheliomuscular. A third type of muscle cell is represented in the longitudinal muscle of the tentacle. Using transgenic animals we show that the apical cell-cell junctions are lost during differentiation, resulting in a detachment of the muscle cells to a basiepithelial position. These muscle cells are still located within the epithelium and outside of the basal matrix, therefore constituting basiepithelial myocytes. We demonstrate that all muscle cells, including the longitudinal basiepithelial muscle cells of the tentacle, initially differentiate from regular epithelial cells before they alter their epithelial organisation.ConclusionsA wide range of different muscle cell morphologies can already be found in a single animal. This suggests how a transition from an epithelially organized muscle system to a mesenchymal could have occurred. Our study on N. vectensis provides new insights into the organisation of a muscle system in a non-bilaterian organism.

The evolutionary mechanisms underlying the emergence of new cell types are still unclear. Here, we address the origin and diversification of muscle cells in the diploblastic sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. We discern two fast and two slow-contracting muscle cell populations in Nematostella differing by extensive sets of paralogous genes. The regulatory gene set of the slow cnidarian muscles and the bilaterian cardiac muscle are remarkably similar. By contrast, the two fast muscles differ substantially from each other, while driving the same set of paralogous structural protein genes. Our data suggest that extensive gene duplications and co-option of individual effector modules may have played an important role in cell type diversification during metazoan evolution.

Cardiac congenital disabilities are the most common organ malformations, but we still do not understand how they arise in the human embryo. Moreover, although cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death globally, the development of new therapies is lagging compared with other fields. One major bottleneck hindering progress is the lack of self-organizing human cardiac models that recapitulate key aspects of human heart development, physiology and disease. Current in vitro cardiac three-dimensional systems are either engineered constructs or spherical aggregates of cardiomyocytes and other cell types. Although tissue engineering enables the modeling of some electro-mechanical properties, it falls short of mimicking heart development, morphogenetic defects and many clinically relevant aspects of cardiomyopathies. Here, we review different approaches and recent efforts to overcome these challenges in the field using a new generation of self-organizing embryonic and cardiac organoids.

SUMMARYOrganoids that self-organize into tissue-like structures have transformed our ability to model human development and disease. To date, all major organs can be mimicked using self-organizing organoids with the notable exception of the human heart. Here, we established self-organizing cardioids from human pluripotent stem cells that intrinsically specify, pattern and morph into chamber-like structures containing a cavity. Cardioid complexity can be controlled by signaling that instructs the separation of cardiomyocyte and endothelial layers, and by directing epicardial spreading, inward migration and differentiation. We find that cavity morphogenesis is governed by a mesodermal WNT-BMP signaling axis and requires its target HAND1, a transcription factor linked to human heart chamber cavity defects. In parallel, a WNT-VEGF axis coordinates myocardial self-organization with endothelial patterning and specification. Human cardioids represent a powerful platform to mechanistically dissect self-organization and congenital heart defects, serving as a foundation for future translational research.Highlights- Cardioids form cardiac-like chambers with inner endothelial lining and interact with epicardium- Cardioid self-organization and lineage complexity can be controlled by signaling- WNT-BMP signaling directs cavity formation in self-organized cardioids via HAND1- WNT-VEGF coordinate endothelial patterning with myocardial cavity morphogenesis

Animals are typically composed of hundreds of different cell types, yet mechanisms underlying the emergence of new cell types remain unclear. Here we address the origin and diversification of muscle cells in the non-bilaterian, diploblastic sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. We discern two fast and two slow-contracting muscle cell populations, which differ by extensive sets of paralogous structural protein genes. We find that the regulatory gene set of the slow cnidarian muscles is remarkably similar to the bilaterian cardiac muscle, while the two fast muscles differ substantially from each other in terms of transcription factor profiles, though driving the same set of structural protein genes and having similar physiological characteristics. We show that anthozoan-specific paralogs of Paraxis/Twist/Hand-related bHLH transcription factors are involved in the formation of fast and slow muscles. Our data suggest that the subsequent recruitment of an entire effector gene set from the inner cell layer into the neural ectoderm contributes to the evolution of a novel muscle cell type. Thus, we conclude that extensive transcription factor gene duplications and co-option of effector modules act as an evolutionary mechanism underlying cell type diversification during metazoan evolution.

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