Image of the Day: Transgenic Axolotl
Lineage tracing reveals how cells help the salamanders regrow chopped-off limbs.
Kerry Grens
Kerry served as The Scientist’s news director until 2021. Before joining The Scientist in 2013, she was a stringer for Reuters Health, the senior health and science reporter at...
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Oct 3, 2018
The regrown limb of an axolotl bears various cell types labeled by fluorescent proteins. Scale bar is 300 micrometers.
IMP / W. MASSELINK
Axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum) have the remarkable ability to regrow missing body parts. In a study reported in Science last week (September 27), investigators traced cells that form the regenerative tissue once a limb is amputated, finding that they de-differentiate themselves during the repair process to a multipotent state to become like a limb bud typical of embryonic development.
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