Newts able to regenerate body parts indefinitely

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Christopher
Posts: 845
Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2003 10:09 pm
Injury Description, Date, extent, surgical intervention etc: Date of Injury: 12/15/02

Level of Injury:
-dominant side C5, C6, & C7 avulsed. C8 & T1 stretched & crushed

BPI Related Surgeries:
-2 Intercostal nerves grafted to Biceps muscle,
-Free-Gracilis muscle transfer to Biceps Region innervated with 2 Intercostal nerves grafts.
-2 Sural nerves harvested from both Calves for nerve grafting.
-Partial Ulnar nerve grafted to Long Triceps.
-Uninjured C7 Hemi-Contralateral cross-over to Deltoid muscle.
-Wrist flexor tendon transfer to middle, ring, & pinky finger extensors.

Surgical medical facility:
Brachial Plexus Clinic at The Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN
(all surgeries successful)

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
~Theodore Roosevelt
Location: Los Angeles, California USA

Newts able to regenerate body parts indefinitely

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http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... itely.html
Newts able to regenerate body parts indefinitely

16:00 12 July 2011 by Cian O'Luanaigh

Image
You're not going to cut my eyes open again, are you? (Image: Nature Productions/NaturePL)


They are the phoenix of the ponds. Newts have a remarkable ability to regenerate body parts – in this case the lenses in their eyes – time and time again.

Over a 16-year period, Panagiotis Tsonis at the University of Dayton, Ohio, and colleagues removed the lenses of six Japanese newts (Cynops pyrrhogaster) 18 times. After each excision, the lenses regenerated. They did so not from remaining lens tissue, but from pigment epithelial cells in the upper part of the iris.

By the end of the study the newts were 30 years old, five years older than their average lifespan in the wild. Even so, the regenerated lenses from the last two excisions were indistinguishable from lenses of 14-year-old adults that had never regenerated a lens.

Importantly, the expression of key genes involved in lens formation was identical. These include the genes controlling the formation of crystallin – a vital protein component of the lens – and regulatory genes.

Tsonis says the regenerative abilities may be down to efficient DNA repair. "The knowledge that newts can regenerate even in old age presents an opportunity to uncover mechanisms of regeneration resistant to ageing," says James Godwin of the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute in Clayton, Victoria. This, he adds, could one day help develop therapies to extend tissue regeneration in humans.

Journal reference: Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1389
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