Fig. 8. MYOCD coactivator condensation drives cardiovascular cell lineage specification.

Schematic illustrating the relationship between natural changes in MYOCD (green) concentration during differentiation, condensate formation, and switch-like gene activation. In undifferentiated cells, although DNA binding transcription factors like SRF (gray squares) and other components of the transcriptional machinery including RNA Pol II and p300 (gray shapes) are present, MYOCD is below the threshold concentration for condensate formation (red dotted line) and cell identity genes are not expressed. When the concentration of MYOCD exceeds the threshold for condensate formation, MYOCD forms nuclear condensates that concentrate the transcriptional machinery (gray shapes) to drive cell identity gene expression, facilitating lineage specification of SMC and CM.