Have a heart: Turn on just a single gene
There’s no single gene for being kind, but there seems to be one for being heartless.
A lone gene appears to act as the master switch in embryonic heart formation, researchers report in the June 29 Cell. When mutated, the gene makes an impaired version of its protein, which fails to turn on other heart genes, so no heart forms.
“There has been intense interest in identifying genes responsible for heart formation,” says Eric N. Olson of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. The attention stems from the frequency of birth defects involving the heart and the poor ability of the adult heart to regenerate after damage (see article “Telltale Heart” in this issue).