The aorticopulmonary septum (also called the spiral septum) is developmentally formed from neural crest, specifically the cardiac neural crest, and actively separates the aorta and pulmonary arteries and fuses with the interventricular septum within the heart during development.^{[1] [2]} The actually mechanical mechanism of septation of the outflow tract is poorly understood, but is recognized as a dynamic process with contributions from contractile, hemodynamic, and extracellular matrix interactions. The neural crest, a component of the ectoderm, is one of several ridgelike clusters of cells found on either side of the neural tube in vertebrate embryos. ... The largest artery in the human body, the aorta originates from the left ventricle of the heart and brings oxygenated blood to all parts of the body in the systemic circulation. ... The pulmonary arteries carry blood from the heart to the lungs. ... Grays Fig. ... The heart and lungs, from an older edition of Grays Anatomy. ... Hemodynamics is concerned with the forces generated by the heart and the motion of blood through the cardiovascular system. ... In biology, extracellular matrix (ECM) is any material part of a tissue that is not part of any cell. ...

References

1. ^ Kirby ML, Gale TF, and Stewart DE. (1983). "Neural crest cells contribute to normal aorticopulmonary septation.". Science 220 (4061): 1059-61. PMID 6844926.
2. ^ Jiang X, Rowitch DH, Soriano P, McMahon AP, Sucov HM.. (2000). "Fate of the mammalian cardiac neural crest...journal = Development." 127 (8): 1607-16. PMID 10725237.