Chop off a salamander’s leg and a brand new will sprout in no time but this ability is not found in most of the animals. Now think of the ability of stem cells to build new body tissues and parts in your body. This is new area of research opened after the new discovery by a research team at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies who were able to regenerate a wing in a chick embryo — a species not known to be able to regrow limbs. However, the procedure is tricky, it is to be noted that if the so called Wnt signaling system is activated for too long period in these animals, cancer results. This has to be done in a controlled way, with just a few cells for a specific amount of time.
Scientists performed the key experiment, successfully testing the ability of an excitatory factor to produce limb regeneration in chick embryos. The signal restarted the process, and genes that were involved in the initial development of the limb were turned back on.
Previously, scientists believed that once stem cells turned into muscles, bone or any other type of cells, that was their fate for life — and if those cells were injured, they didn’t regenerate, but grew scar tissue. Even though manipulating Wnt signaling in humans is, not possible at this point but conserved genetic machinery may still be present, and can be put to work again.
But we can hope that these findings may eventually offer insights into examining the ability of stem cells to build new human body tissues and parts. Wnt signaling may push mature cells go back in time and “dedifferentiate” into stem-like cells, in order to be able to then differentiate once more, producing all of the different tissues needed to build a limb or any other body part.
Wnt signaling system will play a critical role in triggering both normal and abnormal limb growth.
Via: sciencedaily
