Recovery from peripheral nerve damage is a slow and often incomplete process that may leave behind lasting deficits including severe disability. The poor functional recovery is due in part to limited regrowth of axons. For example, after nerve transection, only 10% of axons from the proximal stump may eventually reach their targets. Axon regrowth canContinueContinue reading “Releasing the brake on nerve growth”
Tag Archives: healing & regeneration
EETs encourage growth
Epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs) are lipid mediators that facilitate the growth of new blood vessels. Such angiogenic factors are involved in responses to tissue injury and are required for normal organ and tissue regeneration, but a specific role for EETs in regeneration has not been established. To explore this possibility, Dipak Panigrahy (Harvard Medical School, Boston,ContinueContinue reading “EETs encourage growth”
Serotonin’s new role in the liver
In liver disease, the balance between regeneration of healthy tissue and scar formation (or fibrosis) is disrupted. Hepatocyte regeneration gives way to fibrosis, leading to cirrhosis and cancer. The mechanisms that control this balance are poorly characterized; a better understanding may lead to better management strategies for chronic liver disease. Now, a study led byContinueContinue reading “Serotonin’s new role in the liver”
How dolphins heal
In a recent letter to the editor of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Michael Zasloff (Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC) describes the unique healing properties of dolphin species and proposes that further investigation of the underlying processes may lead to better wound care for injuries in humans. Lab Anim. (NY) 40, 264 (2011).ContinueContinue reading “How dolphins heal”
Losing a gene, regaining lost tissue
Tissue regeneration may be common in certain species but is rare in mammals. Typical mammalian healing involves scar formation, and scar tissue is quite different from the original tissue that it replaces. Regeneration, on the other hand, involves formation of a blastema, a group of cells capable of rapid growth that recreates missing tissue. RegenerationContinueContinue reading “Losing a gene, regaining lost tissue”
How to grow a new limb
Salamanders are commonly used as regeneration models because they can grow new limbs after amputation. At the amputation site, a clump of undifferentiated progenitor cells called the blastema forms and then regenerates the missing tissues. A fully formed limb is comprised of multiple tissue types (including dermis, muscle, nerve and skeletal elements) that must coordinateContinueContinue reading “How to grow a new limb”
Calling all white blood cells
Within a short time after a wound is sustained, white blood cells, or leukocytes, flood the wound area, sometimes traveling from relatively long distances. But the signal that calls them to the wound site has, until recently, been a mystery. Now, Phillip Neithammer (Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA), Clemmens Grabber (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston MA)ContinueContinue reading “Calling all white blood cells”
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