Abstract
Zebrafish have the remarkable ability to fully regenerate a lost appendage, faithfully restoring its size, shape and tissue patterning. Studies over the past decades have identified mechanisms underlying the formation, spatial organization, and regenerative growth of the blastema, a pool of proliferative progenitor cells. The patterning of newly forming tissue is tightly regulated to ensure proper rebuilding of anatomy. Precise niche regulation of retinoic acid and sonic hedgehog signaling ensures adherence to ray-interray boundaries. The molecular underpinnings of systems underlying re-establishment of pre-amputation size and shape (positional information) are also slowly starting to emerge. Osteoblasts play an important role as a cellular source of regenerating skeletal elements, and in zebrafish both osteoblast dedifferentiation as well as de novo osteoblast formation occurs. Both dedifferentiation and proliferation are tightly controlled, which makes it interesting to compare it to tumorigenesis, and to identify potential players involved in these processes. This article is categorized under: Adult Stem Cells, Tissue Renewal, and Regeneration > Regeneration.
Highlights
Across the animal kingdom, the extent of regenerative capacity varies tremendously between species, and between organs (Ricci & Srivastava, 2018)
The zebrafish caudal fin consists of several endochondral bony elements at its base, which are muscularized, while the visible part of the fin that extends from the body is formed by fin rays, and does not contain muscle
Most studies have assumed that a molecular system ensuring fin regeneration to pre-amputation length would consist of at least two components: One allows cells to assess their position along the proximodistal axis of the ray and another translates this information into differential growth rates—proximal high, distal low
Summary
The extent of regenerative capacity varies tremendously between species, and between organs (Ricci & Srivastava, 2018). Several non-mammalian vertebrates possess an astonishing capacity to regenerate complex structures even after a severe tissue loss, an ability that is most dramatically apparent in limb and fin regeneration in salamanders and teleost fish. After amputation of the exoskeletal part of the zebrafish caudal fin, it reliably regenerates within 2–3 weeks, restoring its exact pre-amputation size, and its patterning and tissue organization. As a member of the teleost class of vertebrates, zebrafish possess two sets of paired fins, the pelvic and pectoral fins, and the unpaired caudal, anal and dorsal fins. The zebrafish caudal fin consists of several endochondral bony elements at its base, which are muscularized, while the visible part of the fin that extends from the body is formed by fin rays, and does not contain muscle.
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