Fig. 3. Perturbation in major coronary artery patterning in the Cx431 knockout mouse. Major coronary arteries in wild type (Cx431^+/+) littermates: the coronary arterial pattern of Cx431 wild-type hearts at E16.5-17.5 diagrammed from sectioned hearts. The aorta is viewed as if looking caudally. The three aortic sinuses are labeled ‘R’ and ‘L’ for right and left, and ‘N’ for the third non-coronary sinus. Coronary artery branches feed the ventricular septum (S), the free walls of the heart (M) and the base of the heart (C). The mural branch of the left coronary artery divides into a circumflex artery, which feeds the dorsal side of the heart, and the anterior descending branch (AD) that follows the interventricular groove on the ventral side of the heart. In hearts sectioned favorably, the mural branch of the right coronary artery gives off a slender artery that feeds the base of the atrial septum (AVS). Coronary artery patterns in the hearts of heterozygous (+/–) and homozygous (–/–) Cx431 knockout mice. Some of the changes in coronary artery pattern observed in the E16.5-17.5 heterozygous and homozygous Cx431 knockout mouse hearts are shown: small accessory coronary arteries (Ac) exiting the non-coronary aortic sinus (8462, 8463, 8065 and 8464) or the right or left coronary sinus (8065 and 8048), tunneling of the right coronary artery caudally through the wall of the aorta (8048, 8462, 8463 and 8065), main branches of a coronary artery exiting the aorta separately rather than branching from a main stem (8065), and in one case, the coronary artery stem divided in the wall (8064). In several hearts, a branch of the coronary artery became sinusoidal with thin walls (8489 and 8488).

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