Imaging cardiomyocyte dynamics during regeneration

The zebrafish can robustly regenerate its heart following an injury. During the regenerative process, new tissue such as cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells and fibroblasts are generated in order to replace the lost tissue. How these cell types communicate with each other and the environment (extracellular matrix) in order to properly co-ordinate regeneration is unclear. In this talk, i will present our efforts in using live timelapse imaging with ex vivo cultures of adult hearts to directly visualise and understand the cellular dynamics during regeneration.