Posted by Lindsay Brooke-Nottingham | FUTURITY | Friday, April 23, 2010 16:12
Planarian worms have an amazing ability to regenerate body parts following amputation. These remarkable creatures contain adult stem cells that are constantly dividing and can become all of the missing cell types. They also have the right set of genes working to make this happen exactly as it should so that when they re-grow body parts they end up in the right place and have the correct size, shape, and orientation. (Credit: Daniel Felix/U. Nottingham)
The finding is another step forward in efforts to explore how humans might one day regenerate damaged organs and tissue.
The research led by biologist Aziz Aboobaker at the University of Nottingham in the U.K. shows for the first time that a gene called ‘Smed-prep’ is essential for correctly regenerating a head and brain in planarian worms. The study is published in the open access journal PLoS Genetics.
Read on: http://futurity.org/health-medicine/gene-helps-worm-regrow-missing-head/