Goals of Dr. Pu's research include:
1. To understand the transcriptional network regulating heart development and disease
2. To understand cell lineage specification in heart development and regeneration
3. To understand genetic contributions to congenital heart disease.

The Pu lab is interested in the regulation of gene expression and cell lineage specification in heart development, disease, and regeneration. Major technologies employed include: genetically engineered mice, conditional gene inactivation, genome-wide chromatin occupancy analysis, and RNA expression profiling.

Bio-Sketch

Dr. Pu received an MD from Harvard Medical School. He completed his internship, residence, and pediatric cardiology training at Children's Hospital Boston.

Key Publications:

Zeisberg, E.M., Q. Ma, A.L. Juraszek, K. Moses, R.J. Schwartz, S. Izumo and W.T. Pu. 2005. Morphogenesis of the right ventricle requires myocardial expression of Gata4. J Clin Invest 115: 1522-1531.

Zhou, B., Q. Ma, S. Rajagopal, S.M. Wu, I. Domian, J. Rivera-Feliciano, D. Jiang, A. von Gise, S. Ikeda, K.R. Chien and W.T. Pu. 2008. Epicardial progenitors contribute to the cardiomyocyte lineage in the developing heart. Nature 454: 109-113.

Zhou, B., L.B. Honor, H. He, Q. Ma, J.H. Oh, C. Butterfield, R.Z. Lin, J.M. Melero-Martin, E. Dolmatova, H.S. Duffy, A. Gise, P. Zhou, Y.W. Hu, G. Wang, B. Zhang, L. Wang, J.L. Hall, M.A. Moses, F.X. McGowan and W.T. Pu. 2011. Adult mouse epicardium modulates myocardial injury by secreting paracrine factors. J Clin Invest 121: 1894-1904.

He, A., S.W. Kong, Q. Ma and W.T. Pu. 2011. Co-occupancy by multiple cardiac transcription factors identifies transcriptional enhancers active in heart. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 108: 5632-5637.

He, A., X. Shen, Q. Ma, J. Cao, A. von Gise, P. Zhou, G. Wang, V.E. Marquez, S.H. Orkin and W.T. Pu. PRC2 directly methylates GATA4 and represses its transcriptional activity. Genes & Development in press.