Humans, like mice, can regenerate fingertips--especially as children.STOCK.XCHNG, JUZARAStem cells at the base of finger and toenails act as coordinating centers to orchestrate communication between the nail, bone, and nerve tissues necessary to promote mouse fingertip regeneration after amputation, according to new research published today (June 13) in Nature. Researchers found that nail stem cells use a signaling pathway important for embryonic limb development to help nerves and new nail and bone cells coordinate signaling during tissue regeneration, providing insight that may enable future stem cell therapies.
“It’s a marvelous study” that described the molecular and cellular processes contributing to mammalian regeneration, said Hans-Georg Simon, a developmental biologist at Northwestern University who did not participate in the study. The findings show that the molecular program governing mammalian regeneration resembles that already seen in amphibians—suggesting a conserved regeneration program that could be harnessed in other tissues, he added.
Unlike some amphibians, which can regrow entire limbs into adulthood, mammals have limited powers of regeneration. But mice and humans can regenerate fingertips to a limited extent—a phenomenon linked to the fact that nails, like hair and skin, are self-renewing tissues. “Very little was known about how nail epithelium cells are regulated,” explained Mayumi Ito, a stem cell biologist at New York University (NYU) who ...
