Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Interest-ingly, male and female patients with CVD exhibit distinct epidemiological and pathophysiological characteristics, implying a potentially important role for primary and secondary sex determination factors in heart development, aging, disease and therapeutic responses. Here, we provide a concise review of the field and discuss current gaps in knowledge as a step towards elucidating the “sex determination–heart axis”. We specifically focus on cardiovascular manifestations of abnormal sex determination in humans, such as in Turner and Klinefelter syndromes, as well as on the differences in cardiac regenerative potential between species with plastic and non-plastic sexual phenotypes. Sex-biased cardiac repair mechanisms are also discussed with a focus on the role of the steroid hor-mone 17β-estradiol. Understanding the “sex determination–heart axis” may offer new therapeutic possibilities for enhanced cardiac regeneration and/or repair post-injury.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 90 |
| Journal | Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information: Funding: G.K. acknowledges lab support provided by grants from the Icelandic Research Fund (217946-051), the Icelandic Cancer Society Research Fund and the University of Iceland Research Fund. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Other keywords
- 17β-estradiol
- biological sex
- development
- injury
- regeneration
- repair
- sex chromosome disorders
- sex determination
