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The establishment of cardiac function in the developing embryo is essential to ensure blood flow and, therefore, growth and survival of the animal. The molecular mechanisms controlling normal cardiac rhythm remain to be fully elucidated. From a forward genetic screen, we identified a unique mutant, grime, that displayed a specific cardiac arrhythmia phenotype. We show that loss-of-function mutations in tmem161b are responsible for the phenotype, identifying Tmem161b as a regulator of cardiac rhythm in zebrafish. To examine the evolutionary conservation of this function, we generated knockout mice for Tmem161b. Tmem161b knockout mice are neonatal lethal and cardiomyocytes exhibit arrhythmic calcium oscillations. Mechanistically, we find that Tmem161b is expressed at the cell membrane of excitable cells and live imaging shows it is required for action potential repolarization in the developing heart. Electrophysiology on isolated cardiomyocytes demonstrates that Tmem161b is essential to inhibit Ca 2+ and K + currents in cardiomyocytes. Importantly, Tmem161b haploinsufficiency leads to cardiac rhythm phenotypes, implicating it as a candidate gene in heritable cardiac arrhythmia. Overall, these data describe Tmem161b as a highly conserved regulator of cardiac rhythm that functions to modulate ion channel activity in zebrafish and mice., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interest.

Skeletal muscle is an example of a tissue that deploys a self-renewing stem cell, the satellite cell, to effect regeneration. Recent in vitro studies have highlighted a role for asymmetric divisions in renewing rare "immortal" stem cells and generating a clonal population of differentiation-competent myoblasts. However, this model currently lacks in vivo validation. We define a zebrafish muscle stem cell population analogous to the mammalian satellite cell and image the entire process of muscle regeneration from injury to fiber replacement in vivo. This analysis reveals complex interactions between satellite cells and both injured and uninjured fibers and provides in vivo evidence for the asymmetric division of satellite cells driving both self-renewal and regeneration via a clonally restricted progenitor pool., (Copyright © 2016, American Association for the Advancement of Science.)