Common stem cell in heart and lung development explains adaption for life on land

Biologists have known that the co-development of the cardiovascular and pulmonary systems is a recent evolutionary adaption to life outside of water. Researchers show that the pulmonary vasculature develops even in the absence of the lung. Mice in which lung development is inhibited still have pulmonary blood vessels, which revealed to the researchers that cardiac progenitors, or stem cells, are essential for cardiopulmonary co-development.

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