Gómez del Arco, PabloMuñoz Cánoves, Pura, 1962-Redondo, Juan Miguel2025-04-072025-04-072024Gómez-Del Arco P, Isern J, Jimenez-Carretero D, López-Maderuelo D, Piñeiro-Sabarís R, El Abdellaoui-Soussi F, et al. The G4 resolvase Dhx36 modulates cardiomyocyte differentiation and ventricular conduction system development. Nat Commun. 2024 Oct 4;15(1):8602. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52809-12041-1723http://hdl.handle.net/10230/70097Extensive genetic studies have elucidated cardiomyocyte differentiation and associated gene networks using single-cell RNA-seq, yet the intricate transcriptional mechanisms governing cardiac conduction system (CCS) development and working cardiomyocyte differentiation remain largely unexplored. Here we show that mice deleted for Dhx36 (encoding the Dhx36 helicase) in the embryonic or neonatal heart develop overt dilated cardiomyopathy, surface ECG alterations related to cardiac impulse propagation, and (in the embryonic heart) a lack of a ventricular conduction system (VCS). Heart snRNA-seq and snATAC-seq reveal the role of Dhx36 in CCS development and in the differentiation of working cardiomyocytes. Dhx36 deficiency directly influences cardiomyocyte gene networks by disrupting the resolution of promoter G-quadruplexes in key cardiac genes, impacting cardiomyocyte differentiation and CCS morphogenesis, and ultimately leading to dilated cardiomyopathy and atrioventricular block. These findings further identify crucial genes and pathways that regulate the development and function of the VCS/Purkinje fiber (PF) network.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-52809-1ArrhythmiasCardiac hypertrophyGene regulationHeart developmentinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess