Legs, parts of the heart, brain, and spine - with the Axolotl, everything grows. Now researchers are sure: Responsible for this are cells that also occur in humans.
Losing an axolotl a leg or even parts of organs, which is not a big problem for the caudate. Replacement grows within a few weeks. Researchers have been puzzling for a long time how the survivalists from Mexico manage this. For example, some speculated that Axolotl had some sort of miracle cell that started healing.
An international research team has now carefully investigated which body regions are responsible for the amazing regeneration. However, they have not encountered magical cells. Instead, apparently ordinary cells of the connective tissue regrow entire limbs, the scientists report in the journal "Science".
The amazing thing is that these cells are also found in mammals, including humans. However, here they do not care for miraculous healing, but for scars.
How can that be? "The connective tissue cells from Axolotl simply roll back in their development," says the Leipzig-based researcher Tobias Gerber, who was involved in the study. From highly specialized body cells, so-called fibroblasts, are thereby again precursor cells that can form various types of connective tissue - whether skin, bones or tendons.
Similar all-rounder cells are also found in the arm buds of embryos. They have almost the plan of the limbs and ensure that everything grows exactly as it should.
The scientists have now succeeded for the first time in monitoring the regeneration of axolotrene at the cellular level. The studies were conducted at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, and at the Center for Regenerative Therapies in Dresden (CRTD).
The researchers first labeled and isolated connective tissue cells from the animals, and then decoded individual gene sequences. They were able to pinpoint which of the thousands upon thousands of amazing cells healed. "It was like processing the contents of a fruit bowl into juice without knowing what kind of fruit the shell contains," says Prayag Murawala from the IMP.
Compared to humans, the axolotl genome is complicated. With 32 billion base pairs, the genome of the animals is more than ten times the size of the human genome. Only recently, researchers were able to decode it.
They discovered several genes that only occur in Axolotl and other amphibian species and are active in regenerating tissue. An important and widespread developmental gene called PAX3 was missing; its function takes on Axolotl a related gene called PAX7. Both genes play a key role in the development of muscles and nerves.
Despite their amazing ability to regenerate, Axolotl is considered endangered. In the meantime, more specimens live in laboratories than in nature. An adult Axolotl is milk white, olive green or black and can live up to 20 years.
They spend their entire lives in the larval stage. In other words, in contrast to the vast majority of amphibians, they become sexually mature without undergoing a metamorphosis. Axolotl lays up to 1,500 eggs four times a year.
Losing an axolotl a leg or even parts of organs, which is not a big problem for the caudate. Replacement grows within a few weeks. Researchers have been puzzling for a long time how the survivalists from Mexico manage this. For example, some speculated that Axolotl had some sort of miracle cell that started healing.
An international research team has now carefully investigated which body regions are responsible for the amazing regeneration. However, they have not encountered magical cells. Instead, apparently ordinary cells of the connective tissue regrow entire limbs, the scientists report in the journal "Science".
The amazing thing is that these cells are also found in mammals, including humans. However, here they do not care for miraculous healing, but for scars.
How can that be? "The connective tissue cells from Axolotl simply roll back in their development," says the Leipzig-based researcher Tobias Gerber, who was involved in the study. From highly specialized body cells, so-called fibroblasts, are thereby again precursor cells that can form various types of connective tissue - whether skin, bones or tendons.
Similar all-rounder cells are also found in the arm buds of embryos. They have almost the plan of the limbs and ensure that everything grows exactly as it should.
The scientists have now succeeded for the first time in monitoring the regeneration of axolotrene at the cellular level. The studies were conducted at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, and at the Center for Regenerative Therapies in Dresden (CRTD).
The researchers first labeled and isolated connective tissue cells from the animals, and then decoded individual gene sequences. They were able to pinpoint which of the thousands upon thousands of amazing cells healed. "It was like processing the contents of a fruit bowl into juice without knowing what kind of fruit the shell contains," says Prayag Murawala from the IMP.
Compared to humans, the axolotl genome is complicated. With 32 billion base pairs, the genome of the animals is more than ten times the size of the human genome. Only recently, researchers were able to decode it.
They discovered several genes that only occur in Axolotl and other amphibian species and are active in regenerating tissue. An important and widespread developmental gene called PAX3 was missing; its function takes on Axolotl a related gene called PAX7. Both genes play a key role in the development of muscles and nerves.
Despite their amazing ability to regenerate, Axolotl is considered endangered. In the meantime, more specimens live in laboratories than in nature. An adult Axolotl is milk white, olive green or black and can live up to 20 years.
They spend their entire lives in the larval stage. In other words, in contrast to the vast majority of amphibians, they become sexually mature without undergoing a metamorphosis. Axolotl lays up to 1,500 eggs four times a year.
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