ABOVE: E-SIGNATURE: Tissue in a frog’s uninjured hindleg depolarizes (bright green, right) in an electrical pattern that mirrors the amputation of the other leg (left).
SERA BUSSE, PATRICK MCMILLEN, MICHAEL LEVIN, TUFTS UNIVERSITY
The paper
S.M. Busse et al., “Cross-limb communication during Xenopus hindlimb regenerative response: Non-local bioelectric injury signals,” Development, 145:164210, 2018.
Many animals can regenerate lost tissue during at least part of their life cycles. Studies of Xenopus frogs and other amphibians have found that limb regeneration involves bioelectrical signaling at the amputation site. But growing evidence suggests such signals extend over greater distances. “Electrically speaking, the body seems to be an integrated system,” says Tufts University developmental biologist Michael Levin.
To explore long-range electrical signaling in a regeneration context, Levin’s group amputated part of the right hindlegs of anesthetized froglets that had been soaked in a fluorescent dye that indicates depolarization—a reduction in negative charge inside a cell ...
