Amazing stuff! We could use some of these genes occasionally! 😊
"Cut off the leg of an axolotl, the arm of a starfish, or the tail of a salamander, and they will all eventually regrow. A wide range of species boast regenerative powers—but a new study suggests that rather than evolving independently, these abilities may be traced back to shared genetic roots.
The insight comes from the newly sequenced genome of the brittle star Amphiura filiformis, a cousin to starfish and sea urchins, which sports five spindly legs protruding from a central disc. The creature is a particularly impressive regenerator: If it loses a leg, the limb will regrow within a month.
Researchers amputated the arms of more than 3500 brittle stars, examining which genes were active at different stages of the regeneration process. During the “proliferative” phase of regeneration, where cells rapidly divide to replace lost tissues, the brittle star expressed ancient genes that it had acquired hundreds of millions of years ago. They then compared these genes with those active during the regeneration of two distantly related animals: axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum) and the crustacean Parhyale hawaiensis. The three species shared many of the same genes, pointing to a shared ancestral origin for regeneration. ..."
From the abstract:
"Species within nearly all extant animal lineages are capable of regenerating body parts. However, it remains unclear whether the gene expression programme controlling regeneration is evolutionarily conserved. Brittle stars are a species-rich class of echinoderms with outstanding regenerative abilities, but investigations into the genetic bases of regeneration in this group have been hindered by the limited genomic resources. Here we report a chromosome-scale genome assembly for the brittle star Amphiura filiformis. We show that the brittle star genome is the most rearranged among echinoderms sequenced so far, featuring a reorganized Hox cluster reminiscent of the rearrangements observed in sea urchins. In addition, we performed an extensive profiling of gene expression during brittle star adult arm regeneration and identified sequential waves of gene expression governing wound healing, proliferation and differentiation. We conducted comparative transcriptomic analyses with other invertebrate and vertebrate models for appendage regeneration and uncovered hundreds of genes with conserved expression dynamics, particularly during the proliferative phase of regeneration. Our findings emphasize the crucial importance of echinoderms to detect long-range expression conservation between vertebrates and classical invertebrate regeneration model systems."
The brittle star genome illuminates the genetic basis of animal appendage regeneration (open access)
Fig. 5: Gene expression throughout appendage regeneration across animals.
No comments:
Post a Comment