Sometimes , real life beats science fiction to the punch by come up with nous - mishandle ideas millions of years before they are dreamed up by novelists , screenplay writers , or comic books artist . eubstance part regenerationis one of the best exemplar of this , and is just another mundane fact of lifespan for many animals , as can be seen in this incredible television of cellular natural process in the amputated leg of a crustacean as it regrow .
This amazing footage register aParhyale hawaiensis , a relation of the sand hopper , viewed under a microscope . Outlining their body of work in the journaleLife , researchers from the Institute of Functional Genomics in France give away that they chose this particular crustacean because it regenerates lost limbs extremely rapidly , taking less than a week to regrow a whole wooden leg .
The fact that these legs are transparent and incredibly thin , measuring less than 100 micrometer gauge in diameter , also intend that the team were capable to record the process with undivided - prison cell resolution through the entire thickness of the ramification .
In rescript to achieve this , the research worker first genetically engineered the epidermic cells in the branch stump in rescript make their nuclei glow , thereby make it easier to track their movement and natural process .
“ Using this method , we identified a specific chronological succession of events and prison cell behavior that stretch during limb regrowth , ” explicate study co - author Frederike Alwes in astatement . “ These include wound closure , follow by a quiet period when the epidermal cells migrate slowly towards the site of the wound , which then moderate to extended cadre division and bm as the new branch depart to develop its shape . ”
This in itself is extremely interesting , as it bring out that rectify limbs are not make fromstem cells , but from existing dermal cells that simply divide in purchase order to make a mark newfangled leg .
every bit enchanting is the discovery that all of these cells appear to begin dividing at precisely the same present moment , suggesting that the intact appendage of limb regeneration is controlled by a unmarried signal – although the germ of this start gun is something that the squad are yet to key out .
