Cell-by-cell analysis of regrowing fish heart shows how stress helps
By taking videos of a tiny beating zebrafish heart as it reconstructs its covering in a petri dish, scientists have captured unexpected dynamics of cells involved in tissue regeneration. They found that the depleted heart tissue regenerates itself in a wave, led by a front of fast-moving, supersized cells and trailed by smaller cells that multiply to produce others.
The nature of this wavefront -- and the success of the tissue regeneration that follows -- is determined by mechanical tension that acts upon the cells. The results, published September 25 in the journal Developmental Cell, indicate a new paradigm for how forces acting in tissues can direct the decisions that cells make to regenerate lost tissues.
“Our findings open avenues for the study of cell cycle dynamics in regenerating tissue,” said Jingli Cao, PhD, lead study author and a postdoctoral fellow in Ken Poss’s lab at Duke University School of Medicine. “By manipulating the mechanical tension of cells, we also might be able to develop new bioengineering or translational approaches.”
Read full article at DukeToday.