Mexican Salamander Offers Insights for Regenerative Medicine
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Posted on Jan 12, 2010, 6 a.m.
Indiana University (US) researchers observe that the axolotl, a Mexican salamander, regrows whole limbs lost to injury, studying this regenerative mechanism in hopes of applying the knowledge to help humans who have lost limbs.
Observing that in limbs amputated from the axolotyl salamander, the organism is capable of reprogramming somatic cells to form a blastema that self-organizes into the missing limb parts to restore the structure and function of the limb, David Stocum, from the Center for Regenerative Biology and Medicine at Indiana University (USA), and colleagues identified a cellular protein called EVI5 that appears to give cells this regenerative capacity.
Rao N, Jhamb D, Milner DJ, Li B, Song F, Wang M, Voss SR, Palakal M, King MW, Saranjami B, Nye HLD, Cameron JA, Stocum DL. “Proteomic analysis of blastema formation in regenerating axolotl limbs.” BMC Biology 2009, 7:83, 30 November 2009.
