MicroRNAs Establish the Right-Handed Dominance of the Heart Laterality Pathway in Vertebrates (Developmental Cell)

Heart positioning in vertebrates involves L/R differential EMT and cell movements that displace the posterior pole to the left. Rago et al. show that Nodal-induced miRNAs establish this asymmetry by attenuating EMT factors on the left independently from Pitx2, explaining why the heart phenotypes in Pitx2 mutants are less severe than in Nodal mutants.