Cardiomyocytes Expressing SOX10 are Vital to Zebrafish Heart Regeneration

A few higher animal species, such as salamanders and zebrafish, are capable of regeneration of limbs and internal organs, regrowing lost and injured tissue without scarring or loss of function. Numerous research groups are engaged in investigating the biochemistry of proficient regeneration, attempting to find the specific differences between species that might explain how it happens and why adult mammals are largely incapable of such feats of regrowth. Today's open access research is an example of the type, in which the authors narrow down on a specific cell population that appear in zebrafish hearts during regeneration, but not in human tissues. It may be the case that the mechanisms and capacity for adult regeneration do still exist in mammals, but are suppressed in some way, as suggested by the fact that the human ARF gene can shut down zebrafish regeneration. After all, we all managed to undertake the process of growing organ tissue during embryonic development. Alternatively perhaps a single crucial part of the adult regeneration mechanisms was lost over evolutionary time, and thus there is an opportunity to reinsert it into mammalian tissues via gene therapy or some other form of modern biotechnology. It still remains to be seen as to whether there are simple paths towards enabling greater adult mammalian regeneration, or, as seems equally likely, the situation is a complex mess that will take decades to decipher, and offers no easy path to therapy. Speci...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs