2021 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Study of molecular events during scarless body part regeneration in newts
| Project/Area Number |
20K22969
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| Research Institution | University of Tsukuba |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2020-09-11 – 2022-03-31
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| Keywords | newt / regeneration / scarless / physiology / tissue / transgenic |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The newt has a strong ability to regenerate injured tissue. Key questions remain unsolved. For example what is the role of the blood gene Newtic-1 and what adult cells contribute to limb patterning. To facilitate the role of red blood cells and identifying patterning cell we developed transgenic newts with reporter systems. During this startup the following newt transgenic lines were tested for the first time: (1) We succeeded in isolating the mouse GATA1 promoter and introducing it into the newt Cynops pyrrhogaster. Transgenic mGATA1 reporter cassette was expressed in F0 newt red blood cells, thus allowing future experiments to be designed to target newt red blood cells. (2) We isolated the newt and mouse ZRS (limb enhancer) for tracking cells involved in patterning during newt limb regeneration. We generated F0 transgenics newts expressing a ZRS enhancer, SHH promoter and a fluorescent reporter. Therefore, it is conceivable to track adult patterning cells participating in adult limb regeneration. This is a critical achievement because adult humans do not re-express patterning following injury. So future experiments will also to compare human and newt patterning cell types (3) We succeeded in developing a plasmid to knock-down Newtic1 (a unique gene detected during limb regeneration) in vivo, this plasmid targets newtic1 mRNA and stops protein production via iRNA. Preliminary F0 lines are being tested. (4) Lastly, to study scarless regeneration and patterning. We studied skin grafts and transgenic skin epidermal healing, and found unique ability of newt skin cells.
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