The epicardium is the mono-layered epithelium that covers the outer surface of the myocardium from early in cardiac development. Long thought to act merely passively to protect the myocardium from frictional forces in the pericardial cavity during the enduring contraction and expansion cycles of the heart, it is now considered to be a crucial source of cells and signals that direct myocardial growth and formation of the coronary vasculature during development and regeneration. Lineage tracing efforts in the chick, the mouse and the zebrafish unambiguously identified fibroblasts in interstitial and perivascular locations as well as coronary smooth muscle cells as the two major lineages that derive from epithelial-mesenchymal transition and subsequent differentiation from individual epicardial cells. However, controversies exist about an additional endothelial and myocardial fate of epicardial progenitor cells. Here, we review epicardial fate mapping efforts in three vertebrate model systems, describe their conceptual differences and discuss their methodological limitations to reach a consensus of the potential of (pro-)epicardial cells in vitro and in vivo.
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