Deep Time Evolution of the Regenerative Program of Fins/Limbs and Tails – Combining Molecular, Morphological and Paleontological Approaches

Deep time evolution of the regenerative program of fins/limbs and tails - combining molecular, morphological and paleontological approaches

An understanding of the mechanisms underlying the regenerative programs of limb/fin and tail regeneration in vertebrates are for obvious reasons of great interest and a major research focus of the fields of molecular biology and regenerative medicine in the hope to eventually apply the insights in human medicine (Tanaka 2003). Great advances have been made in recent years on details of the molecular mechanisms on the cellular level (e.g. McCusker et al. 2015; Tanaka 2016) and therein, in particular the Mexican axolotl as salamanders model organism, has played a central role for spinal cord and limb regeneration.
In contrast, very little attention has been paid to the evolutionary history of these extremely high regenerative capacities. Understanding the evolutionary history of high regenerative capacities, however, holds the power to unravel aspects of the regenerative program that may be ancient and shared among vertebrates including mammals, and to understand what impact individual age, ecology and life history strategy have on the regenerative program. By taking an integrative approach that combines new molecular data on non-model organisms, specifically lungfish and diverse salamander taxa, as well as data from the fossil record, we aim to provide a novel evolutionary framework, which holds the potential to enlighten and guide future approaches in regenerative medicine aiming to apply the finds in human medicine.

Principal investigators
Fröbisch, Nadia Prof. Dr. (Details) (Development and Evolution)

Financer
DAAD

Duration of project
Start date: 01/2019
End date: 12/2020

Research Areas
Developmental Biology, Evolution, Anthropology, Evolutionary Cell and Developmental Biology (Zoology)

Research Areas
Organismische Evolution

Last updated on 2022-07-09 at 17:06