Genes for ability to regenerate organs ("Miracle Mouse")

[Martin]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1754008,00.html

 

so far, if the research is solid, this is just in mice.

I do not know of the results at Heber-Katz lab being replicated elsewhere.

if the results are reliable, then about a dozen genes seem to be involved

 

===quote===

 

The Sunday Times August 28, 2005

 

'Miracle mouse' can grow back lost limbs

Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

SCIENTISTS have created a “miracle mouse” that can regenerate amputated limbs or badly damaged organs, making it able to recover from injuries that would kill or permanently disable normal animals.

 

The experimental animal is unique among mammals in its ability to regrow its heart, toes, joints and tail.

 

The researchers have also found that when cells from the test mouse are injected into ordinary mice, they too acquire the ability to regenerate.

 

The discoveries raise the prospect that humans could one day be given the ability to regenerate lost or damaged organs, opening up a new era in medicine.

 

Details of the research will be presented next week at a scientific conference on ageing, Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, at Cambridge University. Ellen Heber-Katz, professor of immunology at the Wistar Institute, an American biomedical research centre, says that the ability of mice at her laboratory to regenerate appears to be controlled by about a dozen genes.

 

She is still researching their exact functions, but it seems almost certain that humans have comparable genes.

===endquote===

[Martin]

Caution: I don't know how reliable Heber-Katz research is, or if it has been replicated in other labs.

 

These results were not new in 2005 when reported in the linked Sunday Times article.

Heber-Katz has been talking about this for some time.

So I cant say if this is legit or not. Does anybody know.

[mike90]

If its true it would be an incredibly exciting advance, but I'd be expecting to be hearing about it by now. Anyone more research capable then myself care to look into it? My method usually involves google or wiki

[Genecks]

Martin, don't you have a bachelor's degree or something? I thought most moderators had one. If so, you ought the be able to figure out credibility by now. Regardless, perhaps you'll think about researching the researcher?

 

http://www.wistar.upenn.edu/research_facilities/heberkatz/research.htm

 

 

She looks like the kind of professor I would like to train under for a Ph.D.

For further inquiry, you could email her.

 

Just because a person has been talking about regeneration for a long time does not mean it is not legit: age fallacy. However, most scientists, from what I understand, don't like to say anything until they have enough evidence to support their claims. There was a large amount of that going on in 2005 with neuroscience; people kept their information until January of 2006.

 

 

This might be the stuff you want:

 

Wound Healing in Mice: In the process of carrying out an autoimmunity experiment, the Heber-Katz research team noted that in the MRL strain of mice, punched ear holes used for long term identification rapidly closed without any sign of scarring. Besides lack of scarring when the ear hole closed, a blastema formed and new hair follicles and cartilage grew back, processes not generally seen in adult mammals though thought to be part of a regenerative process seen in amphibians. The laboratory has been actively pursuing the identification of genes involved in this trait along with the mechanisms that allow this healing to take place. They found that the matrix metalloproteinases are upregulated early after wounding and just prior to blastema formation and that the molecule Pref-1 is upregulated late after wounding and just as the blastema is beginning to redifferentiate into mature cells. These studies have led the research team to examine multiple tissues that show the unusual regenerative capacity seen in this mouse (5-10).

 

And there is also published information:

5. Desquenne Clark, L., Clark, R., and Heber-Katz, E. 1998. A new model for mammalian wound repair and regeneration. Clin. Imm. and Immunopath. 88: 35-45.

 

6. McBrearty, B.A., Desquenne-Clark, L., Zhang, X-M., Blankenhorn, E.P., and Heber-Katz, E. 1998. Genetic analysis of a mammalian wound healing trait. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 95: 11792 - 11797.

 

7. Heber-Katz, E. 1999. The regenerating mouse ear. Seminars in Cell & Develop. Biol. 10:415-420.

 

8. Samulewicz, SJ, Clark,L, Seitz,A., and E. Heber-Katz. 2002. Expression of Pref-1, A Delta-Like Protein, in Healing Mouse Ears. Wound Repair and Regeneration, 10: 215-221.

 

9. Gourevich,D, Clark,L, Chen P, Seitz A, Samulewicz S, and E. Heber-Katz. 2003. Matrix Metalloproteinase Activity Correlates with Blastema Formation in the Regenerating MRL Ear Hole Model. Developmental Dynamics. 226; 377-387.

 

10. Blankenhorn EP, Troutman S, Desquenne Clark L., Zhang X-M, and E. Heber-Katz. 2003. Sexually dimorphic genes regulate healing and regeneration in the MRL/MpJ mouse. Mammalian Genome, In press.

 

There seem to be some other published information:

 

13. Seitz, A., Aglow, E., and E. Heber-Katz. 2002. Recovery from spinal cord injury: A new transection model in the C57BL/6 mouse. J. Neuroscience Research 67: 337:345.

 

14. Seitz, A, Kragol, M, Aglow, E, Showe, L. and E. Heber-Katz. 2003. Apo-E expression after spinal cord injury in the mouse. J. Neuroscience Research. 71: 417-387.

 

You might be able to research these things through an electronic database.

 

I would link to a few articles, but I'm thinking that's illegal. Well, I'm not sure exactly. For what I understand, as long as a person is doing research, he or she is allowed to copy resources; but the person must dispose or return the resources after research.

 

I'm using EBSCO to look at some of these full-text .pdf articles.

 

If any of you are interested, you might be able to visit a public library, college library, and/or university and ask a librarian to help you find these articles.

 

One more thing:

I do not know of the results at Heber-Katz lab being replicated elsewhere.

 

If I read this correctly, it looks like the articled referred to people who were trying to do the same experiment.

[Super Genius]

This particular field of science is probably still in the experimental stage. The results or conclusions may still be tentative or in a state of flux.