With Elly M. Tanaka, Center for Regenerative Therapies, Technische Universität Dresden.
The ability of salamanders to regenerate a complete limb or tail after cutting anywhere along their length has fascinated biologists for centuries. Yet the complex make-up of the mature tissue and the wound response as the starting point, have posed daunting challenges to satisfactorily understanding the cell and molecular biology of these phenomena. Regeneration occurs by transforming the adult tissue into a zone of proliferating progenitors called the blastema. Which cells form the blastema, their potency, and how injury signals induce blastema formation have remained challenges to this day. Using a breedable species of salamander (Ambystoma mexicanum), commonly call the axolotl, we have combined transgenic technologies with live imaging of specific cell types during regeneration to define the cells that form the limb and tail blastema, their fate, and the cell behaviors involved in become a regenerative cell. In addition we have defined injury-associated signals that stimulate cells to start the regeneration process.
