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Biology professor Graciela Unguez works with a fluorescence stereomicroscope in her laboratory in Foster Hall. Unguez s current research looks at the electromotor system of electric fish in an effort to better understand how intrinsic and extrinsic factors influence the phenotype expressed by individual cells.

New Mexico State University biologist Graciela Unguez and a team of researchers found that electric fish, a vertebrate animal just like humans, can regenerate their tails following amputation after activating their stem cells. The findings were published in the May 2012 edition of the scientific journal, PLOS One.

"What's surprising is that as humans, we're one of the few animal species that do not readily regenerate limbs, organs or most tissues," Unguez said. "So, there's a lot of interest in how these fish do it, and what's preventing us from doing it."

Regeneration is the process of restoring lost cells, tissues or organs. According to Unguez, most animals have the ability to regenerate eyes and tails and some animals may be able to regenerate up to half of their bodies.

The researchers discovered that when they cut off up to one third of an electric fish's tail, including the spinal cord, vertebrae, muscles, skin, connective tissues and nerves, the fish would regenerate it. Unguez said the more tissue cut off, the longer the regeneration takes, but for the purpose of her study, it takes about three weeks.

"It's really exciting to us because, here's an example of an animal that can regenerate a lot of tissue types that are also found in

Unguez has used the electric fish as a model system to investigate the role that the nervous system plays in the fate of electrically excitable cells like muscle cells for 15 years. She noted that for many years, scientists have thought that highly regenerative animals use a mechanism of regeneration that does not involve stem cells, and this stem cell-based mechanism is well known in humans. In contrast, the stem cell-independent mechanism found in highly regenerative animals is not normally active in humans.

Unguez explained that stem cells are a small population of cells that do not mature and stay with us throughout our life, and then when called upon, they reenter the cell cycle to become muscle cells, neurons, skill cells and such.

But, what Unguez and her collaborators discovered was the opposite. The electric fish actually activated its own muscle and electric organ stem cells to regenerate. She said the adult fish regenerated unendingly with the activation of their stem cells.

More here:
Electric fish at NMSU activate stem cells for regeneration

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