Mechanisms of Cardiac Sex Disparity

The Colon laboratory is increasingly focused on elucidating how biological sex shapes cardiac development and disease susceptibility. Our group is conducting studies to define how sex-specific regulatory programs influence gene networks that pattern the embryonic heart and contribute to differential vulnerability to structural and functional cardiac disorders across the lifespan. A newer and expanding area of investigation centers on X-chromosome dosage biology, including the role of genes that escape X-inactivation in the heart as potential drivers of sex-biased developmental and disease phenotypes. From these studies, our lab seeks to identify sex-informed regulatory pathways that help explain and ultimately predict sex differences in both congenital and acquired heart disease.