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Scientists Got Adult Frogs to Regrow Limbs. It's a Step Toward Human 'Regeneration'
Millions of people live with amputated limbs that are gone forever. But that might not be the case in the future. For the first time, scientists have shown that adult frogs can regrow amputated legs. They say the approach can work in humans, too. "There is no reason that human bodies can't regenerate," said Tufts University biologist Michael Levin, who led the new research. "This is the first proof-of-principle of a roadmap for regenerative therapy in human medicine, well beyond limbs," he added. "Many problems — from birth defects to traumatic injury, aging and even cancer — could be solved if we understood how to induce organs to regrow in place."
Ultimately, that's what Levin and his research team at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, want to figure out: how cells cooperate to build a complex three-dimensional organ and "stop exactly when it's done." But first, the scientists needed to try to reproduce organ growth in animals that don't regenerate. Adult African clawed frogs, a common laboratory animal known in scientific circles Xenopus laevis, fit the bill. The amphibians are not normally regenerative but have some tissue renewal capacity, just like humans. "We were hoping to show that adult Xenopus frogs are capable of limb regeneration, and to find a trigger that allows it to happen," Levin said.
The trigger the team found is progesterone, the sex hormone involved in the female menstrual cycle, pregnancy and breastfeeding. The scientists applied the compound to frogs' amputated back legs with a wearable bioreactor device for 24 hours. Then they watched as the limb regenerated.
See also: These Flatworms Can Regrow A Body From A Fragment. How Do They Do It And Could We?
Brief Local Application of Progesterone via a Wearable Bioreactor Induces Long-Term Regenerative Response in Adult Xenopus Hindlimb (open, DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.10.010) (DX)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by opinionated_science on Friday November 09 2018, @06:27PM
A few years back, I visited a lab sequencing the Salamander Genome [nature.com], which has the trait that it is 10x the human genome.
The motivation was/is of course, the limbs can be completely regrown so perhaps we can find out why?
There is however some obvious logic that will dampen the spirits for those wishing to become Deadpool!!
It takes a *phenomenal* amount of energy to grow a human limb - and perhaps 15 years!! Salamanders are really quite small, so a few days/weeks is probably not a stretch.
A possible hypothesis (IMHO) is all the extra DNA allows some massively parallel processing of transcipts and ribosomes, to permit the huge amount of cellular regeneration that would be required.
A human version, would probably require wearing a bioreactor in place to provide all the nutrients, and a few years!!
I imagine that a 3D printing of the "skelatal" parts might suffice to jump start the process (this has been successful with hearts).
On the bright side, if your liver could handle it , you'd convert a ton of fat....