Researchers have identified the electrical switch that turns on a tadpole's regeneration system so it can grow a new tail or leg. Someday, a detailed understanding of this phenomena could possibly lead to a way to stimulate human tissue regeneration. Michael Levin and his colleagues at the Forsyth Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology in Boston report that a molecular pump that moves protons across the cell membrane, generating a current, is the "master control to initiate the regeneration response." From News@Nature:
Researchers have known for decades that an electrical current is created at the site of regenerating limbs. Furthermore, applying an external current speeds up the regeneration process, and drugs that block the current prevent regeneration. The electrical signals help to tell cells what type to grow into, how fast to grow, and where to position themselves in the new limb…
…The complex networks needed to construct a complicated organ or appendage are already genetically encoded in all of our (human) cells (too) – we needed them to develop those organs in the first place. "The question is: how do you turn them back on?" Levin says. "When you know the language that these cells use to tell each other what to do, you're a short step away from getting them to do that after an injury."
