Drosophila Heart Development and Function

The insect heart is a developmentally homologous and functionally relevant model for vertebrate cardiac development and function. Here, we survey some of the many uses of the versatile Drosophila system for understanding normal cardiac function, as well as disease etiology. The first section examines the development of the heart, from specification of precursors to differentiation and organogenesis. The second section describes the genetic and electrophysiological properties of the fully formed heart and their relevance as a model for vertebrate function. The third section describes the use of the adult fly heart as a model for congenital and progressive diseases. In addition, we describe the recent use of the fly heart as an effective model to study dysfunction caused by normal aging, and to model the effects of diet and physical activity on long-term function.