The “Cardiac Neural Crest” Concept Revisited

Neural crest cells (NCCs) are a unique stem cell population, which originate from the border between the neural plate and surface ectoderm and migrate throughout the body to give rise to multiple cell lineages during vertebrate embryonic development. The NCCs that contribute to heart development, referred to as the cardiac NCCs, have been assigned to the neural crest at the level of the postotic hindbrain. Recently, we found that the NCCs from the preotic region migrate into the heart and partially differentiate into coronary artery smooth muscle cells. This finding indicates that the origin of the cardiac NCCs appears more widely extended to the anterior direction than Kirby et al. first designated.